


you could make a life outtakes (2020)

by youcouldmakealife



Series: ycmal outtakes [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi, YCMAL 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:22:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 42,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: A collection of snippets originally posted on tumblr based in the general universe presented in you could make a life and its companion series. Canon and AU within, ranging from G-rated gen to explicit
Series: ycmal outtakes [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/335026
Comments: 57
Kudos: 274





	1. David/Jake, Robbie; preparations

David doesn’t forget planning Jake’s birthday, exactly, it’s just that it falls by the wayside in the run up to the playoffs. It was a much tighter race than it’s been in years, the Caps injury depleted for much of the season, and David’s more tired at the end of the regular season than he’s ever been before. He’s decided thirty is, in fact, a milestone, and not a good one: he hurts everywhere, desperately needs to rest, but he doesn’t have that option. Not that he’s complaining about making the playoffs. He’s never going to complain about making the playoffs.

But once they’re in the middle of the first round, knotted at two, David pulls his lists back out, starts building on them, because it’s actually nice to focus on something that isn’t playoff stress.

David feels guilty when that admission comes out of his mouth over lunch with Robbie, since he’s out with a shoulder injury for the second time this season. He’s day to day now instead of week to week, but it’s still frustrating to have lost him, and it must be terrible, watching the playoffs from the press box, so much more stressful than playing in them, because you can’t help your team win from the sidelines.

“Why?” Robbie asks. Thankfully he doesn’t sound offended. “You can’t focus on hockey twenty-four hours a day. Well. _You_ probably can.”

“I don’t focus on hockey twenty-four hours a day,” David says.

Robbie snorts, and opens his mouth.

“I have to sleep,” David says before he can say anything.

“Sometimes I doubt that,” Robbie says. “But then you drool all over my shoulder on the plane.”

“I do not _drool,_ ” David says. “And I don’t sleep on your shoulder.” That’s why he has the window seat; it’s much easier to sleep on the plane when he can brace a pillow against the window, and he’s been sleeping a lot more on planes lately.

“Okay, Chaps,” Robbie says. “Want me to help you shop after lunch?”

David takes him up on the offer, because Robbie probably has more experience with this sort of thing. Everyone probably does.

“A party store?” Robbie asks, when he pulls into the address David gave him. “Seriously?”

“It’s a party, isn’t it?” David asks.

“This is going to be hilarious,” Robbie says, and follows him inside.

David should really hold off on buying anything, wait until he’s in Michigan, since it doesn’t make sense to buy it now and have to ship it later, but then, what if they don’t have the same things in Michigan? What if he sees something promising and never finds it again, or forgets it by the time it’s June?

“Amazon is a thing, Chaps,” Robbie says.

It may be, but David would prefer to buy things he can see, know they look just as advertised, and soon he has grab a second basket, and then exchange two baskets for a cart, because obviously Robbie can’t help him carry things right now.

Robbie’s wandered off into the theme section and picked up a bunch of Capitals themed merchandise — David suspects the plates with Elliott’s picture on them are going to be put in Elliott’s locker — but he snorts over David’s shoulder when he returns.

“Streamers?” Robbie says. “Balloons?”

“They’re traditional birthday party items, aren’t they?” David asks.

“This is like an elementary school birthday party,” Robbie says. “Are you gonna buy Lourdy a hockey cake and stick a little action figure of him on top? Please say yes. Wait, no! You should stick a little action figure of _you_ on top, he’d like it more.”

“You don’t have to help,” David says. “You can go back to finding things to prank Elliott with.”

“Oh, I’m gonna help,” Robbie says. “I’m just going to talk shit the whole time.”

David is used to that by now.

“I think what Lourdy really needs for his not-birthday is plates with your face on them,” Robbie says.

“No,” David says. “He does not.”

“I’m too tired to make a proper sex joke about Jake’s favourite thing being eating off you, so just imagine I said it,” Robbie says.

“Robbie,” David hisses. “This is a family store.”

“I didn’t make the joke, so it’s fine,” Robbie says dismissively. “Can I use some of your streamers for Matty’s locker?”

“They’re for Jake,” David says.

“He doesn’t need six rolls of streamers, Chaps,” Robbie says. “Nobody needs six rolls of streamers.”

“It doesn’t hurt to have extras,” David says, and ignores Robbie’s continued chirping, chin up, as he walks into the next aisle.


	2. Chaz/Ashley, Bryce/Jared; open invitation

Chaz is dreading when Jared leaves for training camp. Like, because he’ll miss him, he guesses is part of it? He will, just like he’ll miss Raf, and Grace, though unlike Raf he actually sees a decent amount of her during the season because Grace and Ash hang out and sometimes they even let him tag along. 

It’s not the same as the post training hangouts that have become kind of a routine — not routine, routine sounds boring or like, training related. Tradition. Whenever everyone’s free and not absolutely wiped because Arvan decided today was the day he’d see how far they could go before they broke — it was far, but they broke — they chill. It’s chill. He’ll miss that.

But Chaz is also very aware that Bryce going to throw an absolute shitfit when Jared leaves, and holy fuck is he dreading that.

Well. Shitfit isn’t the right word, in the end. It’s just — he’s sad. He’s very sad. It wafts off him in waves of tragic and lonely and makes Chaz think about how sad he’d be if Ash was cities away for months at a time. Somehow absolutely no one in the Flames room seems to notice or have thoughts of heartbreak, just Chaz. And yeah, everyone’s focused on training and making the roster and all that, but how can’t they see it? The sadness is putting up beams like those cartoons where there are stink lines coming off someone. But, you know. Sad lines.

Chaz is wiped from training, but towards the end he manfully musters all his remaining reserves of energy — and maybe some that isn’t actually there, he’s pretty tapped out — and invites Bryce over. Bryce probably isn’t as wiped. Bryce is making the roster no matter what. Not that Chaz is saying he’s not putting the work in, he totally is, it’s just there’s a gear you only hit when it could be your entire season on the line, maybe your career, and BJ doesn’t have to hit it.

“Wanna come over for dinner?” Chaz asks, nudging Bryce’s shoe with his own.

BJ does this sad shrug, like, ‘I don’t care, everything in my life is terrible because my husband’s gone’. At least, that’s what Chaz is getting from it.

“Ash is making fajitas,” Chaz says. “Fajitas, BJ? With all the fixings? She does the guac and salsa homemade, it’s way better than the usual stuff.”

Bryce shrugs again.

“Eat good food, maybe crack a beer?” Chaz says. “You can corner Ash in the kitchen and tell her how sad you are while I hide from your feelings in my bedroom?”

Bryce snorts. It’s a reluctant one, but it’s a snort. Point for Rossi.

“C’mon,” Chaz says. “Don’t hang around at home feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” BJ mutters, but he takes Chaz up on the dinner invite, at least. Which is good. The other day Ash painted a grim picture of BJ sitting alone in the dark in his boxers on his couch eating like, dry cereal and drinking beer and watching all of Jared’s highlights, and Chaz laughed but it was a scared laugh because he could picture it with absolute clarity. 

So fajitas. And beer — for Ash and Bryce, not Chaz, Chaz takes one sip and he’ll fall asleep at the table right now, he’s so tired. And true to his word, Chaz abandons Ash to Bryce’s sadness because he’s a bad boyfriend and there is only so much of BJ’s sad face he can take. Ashley’s stronger than he is.

_Thanks._ , Jared texts him while Chaz is scrolling through his Insta feed and trying to mentally calculate how long he can leave them alone before Ash gets suspicious. He figures he’s got three more minutes until she’s coming to find him.

_Hes my bro its not even a thing_ , Chaz texts back, because yes, dinner was maybe prompted by that grim picture of Ash’s, but it’s not like Bryce doesn’t ever come around or whatever. This isn’t him doing anyone favours, just inviting a bud over. And maybe using his girlfriend as a feelings shield, but once BJ settles into the routine of long-distance — and he will, Chaz has seen him do it before — it’ll just be chill dinners again.

_Still._ , Jared texts, along with a smiley emoticon. Emoticons from Jared are weird and wrong. He never used to send them, but then, well. BJ. BJ loves himself some emoticons, and Chaz guesses that rubbed off on Jared’s texting.

Chaz sends back a smile anyway, because ‘dude you scare me when you show emotions’ isn’t nice, though Jared would probably just laugh, tucks his phone in his pocket, and gets into the hall right as Ash comes in from the living room, clearly looking for him. Just in time. Nice.

“Found my phone,” Chaz says.

“Like it ever leaves your pocket,” Ash scoffs, which. Okay, fair. He’s more liable to forget to put on underwear than lose his phone for any length of time. ‘Found my underwear’ is probably a weird excuse though. “Dinner’s pretty much ready, we’re just waiting on you.”

“Sweet,” Chaz says. “Did BJ cry on your shoulder?”

“I don’t cry,” Bryce says from the living room, looking offended. Not a good look on him, but better than sad, at least?

“Dude, maybe try that with people who haven’t literally had front row seats to you weeping like a little baby,” Chaz says.

“That was my wedding, that doesn’t count,” Bryce says, then looks all sad again, because dammit Chaz brought J up. Not that Bryce isn’t going to associate everything with Jared right now, but talking about his damn wedding, well. Bryce doesn’t have to reach, Chaz brought the sadness right to him.

“Food!” Chaz says, which is pretty unsubtle as distractions go, but dinner’s ready, so whatever.

Chaz inhales everything in front of him and steals two sips of Ash’s fancy beer and it turns out that is, in fact, enough to take him out, though at least not at the table. He wakes up dry-mouthed an indeterminate time after they sit down on the couch to watch a movie.

“It’s just, you know,” BJ’s saying. “Hard. Especially when we just got married, you know? Like, technically that doesn’t make a difference but it kind of does? I don’t know.”

“No, it makes sense,” Ashley says. “You didn’t really get a lot of time to just enjoy the honeymoon phase before he had to head up to Edmonton.”

Chaz hunkers down lower on the couch, opens his eyes to slits to see Ash’s hand on Bryce’s shoulder, and then shuts his eyes again and lets himself go back to sleep, because Ash has it covered.


	3. David, Oleg, Caps; proud dad

David can’t say he’s ever particularly excited when the parent trips roll around. Last year was a mom’s one, and he didn’t bother to ask his mother if she was busy. He’s sure she was, and honestly, he didn’t really want her there even if she wasn’t. He can’t imagine she’d have much in common with the other mothers, and she has no interest in hockey, and it’d just be uncomfortable. His father’s just retired, earlier than most, though David’s sure he can more than afford it, and David’s sure he’d have plenty of time, but David isn’t interested in asking him either.

He wonders sometimes if they see the games, the parents up in the stands — he knows the cameras like to focus on that, like the storyline of it, not just CapsTV but the networks too — and wonder why he didn’t invite him, but then again, he knows they’re not watching, so they probably don’t even know it’s a thing.

Even Robbie’s father is coming this year, and while David’s happy for him — though he certainly doesn’t seem as excited about it as when it was his mother coming for the mom’s trip — it means David’s the sole exception, except for Brayden, but the fact his father’s in the hospital is a fairly compelling reason for his absence. Besides, his uncle’s coming on the trip instead. David doesn’t have an uncle he can ask.

Jake tells him his dad’s willing to come out, but not like he means it. Well, David’s sure he does mean it, that his dad did say that, but also that Jake’s well aware it’s a bad idea that David would say no to. People know what Jake Lourdes’ parents look like. It’s fine. He’s more than used to it by now, even if he doesn’t think it’s ever going to be comfortable. The media’s too savvy to ask outright why his parents aren’t present, and so are the guys, mostly — well, savvy isn’t the right word, David supposes. Nice, maybe. His teammates are too nice to ask. The media’s never nice, just smart enough to appear that way when it serves them.

Still, it’s another year he’s going to have to face the awareness that people are specifically not asking him, that they notice he’s the exception, that they wonder why he’s the exception. It’s frustrating.

He goes to the Kurmazovs for dinner the night before they fly out, his last home meal in awhile. He’s been trying to cook more for himself, get a little more creative in the kitchen, branch out from his usual meals, but Oleg and Maria are much better in the kitchen than he is, and as an added bonus he gets to see them, keep Evgeni occupied while they cook.

“We haven’t seen enough of you lately,” Maria chides him while Evgeni repeatedly rams into David’s thigh with the truck he’s playing with. “Zhenya, stop,” she says.

“It doesn’t hurt,” David says.

“He still shouldn’t do it,” Maria says.

“I can come for dinner when I get back?” David asks.

“Of course,” Oleg says. “But I will be coming on the road trip.”

“Oh,” David says. “Any particular reason?”

“Team business,” Oleg says with a shrug.

David doesn’t know if it’s meant to sound mysterious or not, but it does. Maybe they’re scouting someone in California. That wouldn’t usually be in Oleg’s job description, though. Maybe it’s a Russian player, someone he knows personally. David knows better to ask. Oleg likes to be inscrutable sometimes, amused when it frustrates David. It’s not just David he does it to — he knows it drives Oleg’s daughters crazy, will drive Evgeni crazy someday too. It just seems to amuse Maria, but perhaps that’s because Oleg never does it to her, at least that David’s seen.

She seems amused right now, on schedule, smirking into her glass of wine.

“Dinner!” Oleg calls, and when it’s been two minutes and no one’s arrived, mutters something in Russian David can’t quite catch — it sounds grumpy, but if it isn’t swearing, David generally won’t recognise it — and then stomps upstairs.

“Do you know why he’s coming to California?” David asks Maria.

“Team business,” Maria says, looking amused again — somehow David feels simultaneously like it’s at his expense, but also unoffended by it — then, “Perhaps he wants a break from winter.”

It’s quite temperate, actually, mild even for a Washington winter, but then, David’s sure it’s warmer in California. Actually sure — he checked the forecast so he could pack weather appropriately.

“Perhaps he just wanted a break from the children,” Maria adds.

“He would never,” David argues, and she pats him on the back, smiling. David feels like the smile’s at his expense again, still finds himself not quite minding.

*

David’s expecting Oleg to be sitting with the front office staff on the plane when they board, concerned when he doesn’t appear, but it turns out that he, instead, travelled with the trainers and equipment managers and the fathers, and David sees him after they land, when the fathers swarm their sons like they hadn’t just seen them in DC that morning, like it’d instead been weeks or months.

“What’s Kurmazov doing here?” Robbie says. “Oh man, is he here to be your dad? Is he literally finally becoming your dad?”

“What?” David says. “No.”

“He fucking is,” Robbie crows. “This is amazing.”

“He’s just here for team business,” David says.

“He’s front office,” Robbie says. “Like, doing a job he said he specifically took so he wouldn’t have to travel anymore. So that’s a nah.”

“Front office comes on trips,” David argues.

“Yeah, like the GM and stuff, not—” Robbie says, then puts his hands up. “Fine, he’s totally here for business, weirdo.”

“You’re the weirdo,” David mutters, and tries and fails to avoid getting a hair ruffle as Robbie tells him he’s proud of him for chirping, even if he sucks at it, before Robbie breaks off to go talk to his own father, pretending to check his phone so no one will wonder why he isn’t joining the crowd, before he gets caught up answering a flurry of texts from Jake about some TV show he’s binge-watching, making a mental note to ask Robbie if they can watch that when they’ve wrapped up Justified.

David doesn’t see Oleg again until after the game, when the dads take over the dressing room, and, incongruously, Oleg is among them. Even more incongruous is the fact that he’s wearing a Caps jersey, and, when he comes over to David’s stall, David blinks to see the 11s on his shoulders.

“What are you wearing?” David asks.

“Well, I can no longer wear my own,” Oleg says with a shrug.

“But why are you wearing a jersey at all?” David asks.

“I thought I would get in the spirit of the trip?” Oleg says.

“But why are you wearing _my_ jersey?” David asks.

“Stop embarrassing me, dad!” Robbie says in a high voice David suspects is meant to be his own, and ducks, Oleg’s hand swatting the air where his head was.

“Rob, save me,” Robbie says, which is a strange comment, but then he flings himself behind a dad — it isn’t his, David thinks it’s Elliott’s father — and David guesses that’s his name.

“What’d you do now, Robbie?” Rob says, sounding exactly like Elliott when Robbie’s acting up, which probably confirms it.

“I only spoke the truth!” Robbie says, then, when David and Oleg exchange long-suffering looks, _“See?”_


	4. Robbie, Melissa; confrontation (pt 1)

Robbie knew there was a chick Georgie was dating before she came around. Doesn’t mean he’s ready for it when she walks into the bar after a game. He kind of figured she’d be history before it ever reached that point, but apparently not.

She’s the typical kind of girlfriend for Georgie, hot as shit and knows she is, probably spends more money on her hair and manicures and whatever the fuck than Robbie spends on food in a month, and it was one thing, to know that she existed, and it’s a whole other thing to see her in his space, their goddamn space, clinging to Georgie like he belongs to her. 

Robbie swears he can hear this voice in his head right now, all ‘you can bring your boyfriend but Georgie can’t bring his girlfriend?’, in some kind of mash-up between Saul and Cap Q, and that stupid voice is right, he knows it’s right, but he wants her to get the fuck out.

Ted couldn’t come out tonight, is getting brunch with a few friends bright and early tomorrow, way too early for Robbie to even consider tagging along, and Robbie was totally chill about that until right now, when he wants him here more than anything. He’d want him here anyway, but fuck he wants him here right now, so he could — he doesn’t know. Throw him right back at Georgie. That sounds shitty.

“Robbie,” Matty says after Georgie introduces her to the group, Melissa — she looks like a Melissa, and Robbie didn’t know he even had a feeling about that name until right this minute, but his feeling is basically fuck every Melissa ever — and it’s just one word, but it has all this other stuff in it, all ‘are you okay?’ and ‘don’t do anything stupid’ at the same time.

“I’m fine,” Robbie says. “It’s fine.”

If Georgie had told him he was bringing her Robbie probably would have laughed in his face for assuming Robbie gave a flying fuck about it, told him to get over himself, thinking what, Robbie still gave a shit what Georgie did?

Georgie should have fucking told him first.

The part of Robbie that wants her to get the fuck out, never wants to look at her, that clashes hard with the part of Robbie that doesn’t want Georgie to put anyone through the shit he put Robbie through, the shit he seemed to put all his college girlfriends through, not that it was anywhere near as serious as they were, as Robbie thought they were. Claims he didn’t do it in Cleveland, claims he’s a changed man or whatever the fuck, but if there’s anything Robbie knows about Georgie, it’s that Georgie can lie like he breathes when it suits him.

Her and Georgie don’t try to join the table Robbie’s at, thank fuck, halfway across the bar talking to some of the vets, like Georgie belongs there. Craney leans into his space, says, “You’re staring,” and Robbie jerks his eyes down to the table, focuses on his beer, which needs drinking. When most of it’s gone and he looks over again, Georgie’s talking to Cap Q, but his girl’s nowhere to be seen, until Robbie locates her at the bar, probably ordering a drink.

If Georgie didn’t want Robbie to talk to her, he shouldn’t have brought her, or, at the very least, he should have stuck to her like glue. Who knows, maybe this is exactly what he wants. Robbie doesn’t know shit about Georgie when it comes down to it. The idea of playing into his hands is infuriating, enough to make him hesitate, trying to figure out what his game’s supposed to be.

“Bathroom,” Robbie says to the table at large, and Matty looks like he wants to say something as Robbie pushes out from the table, but won’t because there are too many people around, which works for Robbie. Also what works for Robbie: bar’s before the bathroom, and he thinks he might get distracted on the way.


	5. Robbie, Melissa; confrontation (pt 2)

Robbie runs out of — he doesn’t know, courage? Steam? Runs out of something when he reaches the bar. Melissa’s back is to him, and considers just going to the bathroom, even though he doesn’t need to, maybe ordering a drink, because he’s not sure what to say to her, how to open shit. ‘Hi, I’m your boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend, are you aware he’s a piece of shit?’. So instead he’s just hovering, staring at her like a fucking creeper, which is great. Robbie’s night is going terrific.

“Can I help you?” she asks, not even looking at him, and Robbie realizes she might think he’s just come to hit on her or some shit. She met him for two seconds, along with two dozen other dudes, Georgie wouldn’t have told her shit about him, and she probably gets hit on all the time. Georgie said she was a bartender. Not to Robbie, and not — Robbie wasn’t listening or anything, he just heard Georgie say it. Guys probably hit on her every night.

“Do you know who I am?” Robbie blurts out before he can think about it, which sounds like some ego tripping bullshit.

She glances over at him. “Georgie’s teammate,” she says, and, before he can say anything, “And yeah, I know the rest.”

Robbie highly doubts that. Imagines Georgie gave her a highly sanitized version at maximum, some ‘hey one of those dudes hates my guts, who knows why, ha ha, don’t listen to anything he tells you about me being a cheating sack of shit’.

“Tell you we played in college together?” Robbie asks.

“He did, yep,” she says.

“Tell you what else he got up to in college?” Robbie asks.

“If this is you trying to get around to the subject slowly, I know he cheated on you,” Melissa says. Says it matter-of-fact, like it’s just — like it’s something you say. Like it’s something Georgie had any fucking right to tell her.

“I—” Robbie says, at a loss for words, and when the bartender hands her drinks — two, one for Georgie, obviously she’s picking up for Georgie too — he says, “I was just making sure you knew.”

“Well, I know,” Melissa says.

“And you’re still dating the guy?” Robbie asks.

“Why do you care?” Melissa asks.

“I’m just trying to—” Robbie says.

“What?” Melissa says. “Look out for me? Is that what you’re going to say?”

“Apparently someone has to,” Robbie says.

“I think we both know what you’re doing right now,” she says. “And it isn’t looking out for me.”

“What?” Robbie says. “Convinced you’re different, right? You’re the exception. He could never do it to you. Why fuck around when he has y _ou_?”

“We have an open relationship,” she says, looking away from him. Scanning for Georgie, probably. Robbie’s surprised he hasn’t shown up. Or not surprised, if this was his plan. Robbie’s still not sure what the fuck it’d be his plan for. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Oh yeah?” Robbie asks. “And I’m betting that was his idea.” All the fucking around and none of the cheating. Bet Georgie loves that loophole.

“We both agreed on it being open from the start,” she says. “Again, not that it’s any of your fucking business.”

“But you’re telling me anyway,” Robbie says.

“Well, it seems like it’d make you feel better,” Melissa says. “You know, if you were looking out for me.”

Robbie can’t think of an answer to that before she’s talking again.

“Our beers are getting warm, so if you’re not about to tell me that Georgie eats children or votes Republican or something, you’re kind of wasting my time right now,” she says, and Robbie can’t think of anything to say to that either before she’s walking away from him, this sway in her hips like she’s fucking proud of herself or something, and there’s one tiny part of him that accepts that’s a pretty good exit, but it’s overtaken by the rest of him, who fucking hates her.

Robbie notices Matty coming over the second he manages to turn away, and he bets he was hovering the whole time, trying to what, babysit Robbie, sure Robbie was going to do — who the fuck knows. He can’t even be mad about it right now, because whatever Matty thought, he was probably right.

He thought he could do this, but apparently there’s a difference between sharing a room, a team, a bench, being — not okay with it, that isn’t the word, but dealing, and knowing Georgie’s fucking someone else, that he’s moved right on, being confronted by that.

Robbie needs — he doesn’t know. Saul. His mom. Ted. For her to get the fuck out of his bar, for Georgie to get the fuck off the planet. Not Matty, that twisted up expression on his face, ‘are you okay?’ again but also ‘what stupid shit did you do?’.

“Don’t,” Robbie says, the second Matty’s in hearing distance. “I know, okay, just — don’t.”

“Okay,” Matty says, then, “Bardi.”

“I said _don’t_ ,” Robbie says.

“Maybe we should head out?” Matty asks.

“And seem like, what, I fucking care who Georgie brings?” Robbie asks. “Stop fucking looking at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Matty says.

“She’s a fucking bitch,” Robbie says. “So I guess they deserve each other.”

Matty says something too low for Robbie to catch, muttered, like the kind of shit you say under your breath to hurt someone, half hoping they hear you, half hoping you get away with it. Not that Robbie has experience with that or anything.

“What?” Robbie says.

“Nothing,” Matty says. “Let’s watch the basketball game?”

“Not feeling it,” Robbie says.

“Let’s watch the basketball game,” Matty says, firmer, and Robbie lets him steer him back to the table. He takes Robbie’s spot, so Robbie’s got his back to the bar, the table Georgie’s still at. He knows what Matty’s doing, but he just feels — tired, more than anything, so he lets him do it. Georgie and his chick are gone by the time Robbie’s finished his second round. Driven off, Robbie guesses. He should feel something about that.

“You want to head out?” Matty asks, sort of at Wheels, but mostly at Robbie.

“Yeah,” Robbie says. “Let’s go.”


	6. David, people David loves a lot, and…the media&fandom dad(dy)

**Oleg Kurmazov Present on Capitals Road Trip**

[…] The fact that he was present during the self-described ‘dad’s trip’, and the fact he was sporting a Chapman jersey, has lead to a frenzy among Capitals fans on twitter, who have collectively decided he’s present as a father figure to David Chapman, whom he played on a line with on the New York Islanders as well as the Washington Capitals.

“I am here to support my team,” Kurmazov said, when asked about his presence, and whether he was there in a scouting capacity.

And the Chapman jersey?

“Oh,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “David is my daughter’s favorite player, so I thought it would be a good idea to wear it.”

Kurmazov has three daughters and a son. When asked which daughter considered Chapman her favorite, Kurmazov said, with a laugh, “All of them.”

*

“Did you have something to do with this?” David asks when Kiro picks up the phone.

“I have no idea what are you are talking about,” Kiro says, and not like he’s faking it.

“Oleg’s here,” David asks.

“Tell him I say hi?” Kiro says, sounding confused.

“I mean he’s here on the dad’s trip,” David says. “He wore my jersey.”

“Awwwwwwwwww,” Kiro says.

“No!” David says. “It’s not—”

Kiro keeps making cooing noises at him. They’re annoying.

“Stop,” David says.

Kiro continues to coo.

“I’m going to hang up!” David threatens.

“Olezhka is such a softie,” Kiro says.

“Hanging up!” David says.

“Softie—” Kiro repeats before David makes good on his threat.

Kiro sends him a number of sad emojis, and David, feeling guilty, picks up when Kiro calls him five minutes later, even though that means he has to endure more teasing.

*  
 **Is Oleg Kurmazov David Chapman’s father?**

Not literally, obviously. For one, generally you don’t become a dad before the age of eleven, and even if you do, your son probably doesn’t grow up in a whole other continent. Though maybe them being related would explain some of their perfect chemistry on the ice.

But I’m sure at least a few people wondered that when Kurmazov showed up on the Caps bi-annual dad’s trip. Him being there wasn’t that weird, considering he’s now part of the Caps front office, though he hasn’t been spotted on any other trips. What is weird is the timing and the fact that he was spotted at a game not beside Rutledge, as you’d expect, but with the fathers of Caps players, all wearing their sons numbers, and that he was wearing a jersey of his own: Chapman’s.

Has an adoption taken place?

Chapman’s actual dad, is, as far as we’ve gathered, not on the trip, so maybe Kurmazov felt like someone should pick up the slack. After over a decade of playing on a line with Chapman, maybe he feels like he’s got a hockey son.

Whatever it is, we are here for this.

*

“Hear your dad’s there,” Jake says, when David picks up. David can practically hear the grin.

“Kiro,” David says darkly.

“Wasn’t even Volkie who told me, Nat sent me an article,” Jake says. “The internet’s been going nuts. They think it’s adorable.”

David sighs.

“First time I met him he totally did the dad ‘you’re not good enough for my kid’ glare at me,” Jake says. “Just saying.”

“Your dad didn’t do the dad glare at me,” David says, then considers. “Did he?”

“My dad’s never done the dad glare in his life,” Jake says. “He says he has a Chapman jersey too if you need him to sub in.”

David smiles down at his knees. “Since when does he have a Chapman jersey?” he asks.

“I seriously have no idea,” Jake says. “But he sent me photo evidence. I can send it to you.”

“You don’t have to, I believe you,” David says, but when Jake sends him a picture later of his father’s back, thumbs pointing towards the eleven, David saves it to his phone.

*

 **Jessie:** I.AM.DYING?????  
 **Jessie:** <photo>  
 **Jessie:** Am I hallucinating OK wearing Chaps jersey right now? ON THE DAD’S TRIP??????  
 **Quinn:** Does that make OK Chaps dad or his daddy?  
 **Jessie:** THIS IS A SOFT HOCKEY FAMILY MOMENT QUINN DON’T MAKE IT KINKY.  
 **Quinn:** Yeah I guess it’d be Chaps wearing his jersey then if he was his daddy  
 **Jessie:** HE’S HIS DAD!!!!! QUINN HE’S OFFICIALLY HIS DAD!!!  
 **Quinn:** (dy)  
 **Jessie:** how dare you.


	7. Ryan/Nikolaj; overthinking and underperforming

For all that it was Ryan asking Madsen up to his room, he’s the one following Madsen’s lead. At the bar, of course, him stock still until Madsen paid the bill, no actual yes to it, but the implication there, from the look he gave Ryan to the way he used the exit to the lobby rather than the one that lead to the streets outside. It’s Madsen’s show, suddenly, and Ryan’s the one following him, trails him straight to the elevator bay.

Madsen presses the up button, but when they get into the elevator — alone, thank fuck — he looks over at Ryan for the first time, seeking guidance. And that’s right. He’s got no clue what floor to press, because this isn’t his hotel, and it’s not his room he’s going to, and he’s hardly going to press the button for every single floor. He’s going to wait for Ryan to do it, because it is Ryan’s hotel, and it’s Ryan’s room they’re going to, because Ryan just fucking propositioned a Buffalo Sabre.

Ryan keeps his eyes forward, and stabs the button to his floor, stabs the door close button about seven times as well, because the last thing they need is someone getting in.

Ryan rethinks his stupid fucking offer about seventeen times on their way up to his room. It really is incredibly how much thinking — rethinking — you can do in the space of sixteen floors, especially because it’s a pretty fast elevator. A panicked thought per floor, plus one for good measure as the doors open on Ryan’s floor and Madsen steps out while Ryan hesitates.

Ryan’s phone buzzes in his pocket as Madsen follows him down the hall, with just enough distance that might not look like they’re together, not enough distance for that to be believable. It’s probably Becca, saying ‘oh Ry’. Becca, saying ‘do not have sex with him’.

Too late. Well. It isn’t, Ryan could stop at any moment, say he changed his mind, say this is a terrible idea, which it is, that it’s unprofessional, which it is, and unethical, which it is, that it could get him fired, which it absolutely would if this was found out, and probably end his career in journalism entirely. But realistically? Too late.

Literally any moment someone from Buffalo sports media could step out of their room and see one of the Sabres As following a reporter to his room, and anything they could assume that meant wouldn’t be worse than the truth of it.

Ryan watches the green light flash, hears the chirp of the click as the lock disengages, and then they’re both inside.

Ryan’s half expecting Madsen to slam him against the door the second it shuts behind them, half expecting him to suddenly say this is a terrible idea — because it _is_ , fuck, it is, and someone has to say it and apparently it’s not Ryan, because Ryan can’t bring himself to say a word right now.

He doesn’t do either of those things, in the end, looks around Ryan’s room, vaguely curiously, like ‘oh, this is the habitat of a beat reporter’. It’s not much to look at. Mid-scale room, a pair of Ryan’s shoes kicked out in the hall rather than neatly arranged, because he wasn’t expecting company — _obviously_ — and if he had been, it would have been Becca, who saw the absolute disaster that was his apartment back in college, so she wouldn’t bat an eye. Open closet, a suit bag in it. Ryan finds himself looking at his room with a more critical eye, wondering what Madsen’s seeing. Wondering if it’s amusing, or pitiful, or —

He needs to shut his brain off. Never mind that his brain shutting off temporarily — or, more accurately, to have been consistently overriden by his dumbass libido — seems to be what got him into this mess.

“You want a drink?” Ryan asks, antsy, because Madsen isn’t saying anything. Everything in the mini-fridge is absurdly overpriced, and he won’t be comped for anything alcoholic, but it’s something to ask, he guesses. The polite thing, or maybe just the cliche thing. Want a drink? Want to come up for a cup of coffee? Hey, Madsen, want to see my etchings?

Fucking hell.

“I’m fine,” Madsen says. He still hasn’t made it more than two steps in the door, seems to be in this limbo between retreat and headlong idiocy. Ryan’s never liked him more than in this exact moment, never disliked him more either.

“Cool,” Ryan says. “Um.”

“Do you do this often?” Madsen asks, the curiosity in the way he looked around Ryan’s room all in his voice now, the way his eyes snap to Ryan’s face.

It’s probably rich, how offended Ryan is by the question, what it’s implying, considering he’s doing it right now. The idea of Madsen thinking Ryan goes around dicking hockey players — but where are they right now? Why wouldn’t he?

“What?” Ryan asks. “Fuck guys, or fuck guys who could get me fired?”

“I would never tell anyone,” Madsen says, which is possibly the most absurd thing said tonight, including Ryan asking him to come up, both because no one in the history of ever has said that in the context of anything that is remotely a good idea, and the way Madsen sounds almost injured as he says like, like Ryan hurt his feelings.

Ryan’s phone vibrates in his pocket, a call this time. Becca, of course, probably to say ‘don’t you fucking dare have sex with him, Ryan’. Well, no. She’d never be so uncouth. But a nicer, softer version of that.

“Should you get that?” Madsen asks.

“Probably,” Ryan says, but he doesn’t, doesn’t even pull it out, just lets itself buzz itself into silence. It’s a heavy feeling silence, awkward, the kind that’s hard to break. Only two ways to do it right now, really. It’s not like they’re going to stand around looking at each other all night. Either Ryan says he’s changed his mind, asks Madsen to leave, or all that was implied in his offer isn’t just implication anymore.

He finds himself frozen between the choices.

“Should I go?” Madsen asks.

Yes. Obviously. That’s the right choice, and Madsen’s made it easier to tell him to leave, making it less of a statement from Ryan, or suggestion, or brush off, just the answer to Madsen’s question.

“I don’t want you to,” Ryan’s stupid fucking mouth says, and he doesn’t know if it’s him or Madsen who moves in first, who bridges the gap, whose fault it is. At this point, in as deep as he is, it probably doesn’t matter.


	8. Bryce/Jared, various; speculation

_The biggest story of the day, of course, was Bryce Marcus showing up with a ring on his finger — already surprising, considering by all accounts he was single going into the offseason, and there’s nary a girlfriend to be found on his public Instagram, let alone a wife — and refusing to say anything about who the hell he got married to._

_This is Bryce Marcus we’re talking about here: Oilers fan puncher, blowing almost twice the legal limit driver, reported locker room poison, so maybe it’s hit the point where we shouldn’t be surprised by anything he does. And to be fair, there are a half a dozen different situations Marcus could have gotten himself into in the offseason that would have made the Calgary fanbase mentally shrug._

_A DUI? Been there, done that. Assault? Ditto. A whole battery of misdemeanour charges would have just gotten eyerolls. Hell, him getting a tiger a la Mike Tyson might have just gotten a single raised eyebrow._

_But marriage? That one’s a little out of left field._

_Thoughts? Speculation?_

> **COMMENTS:**
> 
> Prob did a vegas wedding with some chick he met that night and PR told him he wasn’t allowed to talk about it while they tried to figure out how to annul it without giving her millions of bucks.
> 
> That is…incredibly believable considering who we’re talking about here.
> 
> oh man now that you’ve said it I can’t picture it being anything else.
> 
> Maybe it’s to a guy and he’s just trying to keep it on the dl? Just because he didn’t have a girlfriend doesn’t mean he was single.  
>   
>  Dude. Not cool.

*

“How’s the internet going?” Dave asks.

Andreas grimaces.

“Bad internet?” Dave asks.

“Not the best,” Andreas says.

“What’s the prevailing theory?” Dave asks.

“Drunk Vegas wedding in the midst of being annulled is winning,” Andreas says.

“Well,” Dave says. “I guess I’ll take it? Any speculation about Matheson?”

Andreas shrugs. “Not much,” he says. “A few fans who noticed the ring and are surprised because they thought he was single. Definitely no articles.”

“Greg’s so lucky,” Dave mutters.

“This is why you make the big bucks, boss,” Andreas says. “Drama’s part of the package.”

“I don’t like your tone, Krause,” Dave says. “Back to the internet.”

Andreas gives him a little salute.

*

_So I served Bryce Marcus and Chaz Rossi today at work. And I was considering pretending not to know who they were, because they probably get interrupted all the time, especially Marcus, but then I saw Marcus was wearing a wedding ring and I figured congratulating him was a nice thing to do. (Okay, I also wanted to get an autograph for my boyfriend who’s obsessed with him, sue me.)_

_He was super nice about it, way different than you’d expect from all the stories of him. When I said ‘congrats on getting married’ he gave me this giant smile, and said ‘thanks so much! It’s pretty terrific’ and Rossi kept laughing at him, said something like ‘tone it down, dude’, so I guess he’s big in the honeymoon stage. I didn’t end up getting their autographs, but Marcus left a killer tip. Just saying, he seemed like a nice dude. Maybe other people just got him on a bad day or something. I’d take customers like that any day of the week._

_My boyfriend won’t quit sulking about the fact I didn’t get an autograph though so fingers crossed they come back again because it’s ANNOYING AS HELL._

*

“Everyone thinks I’m your wife again,” Ashley says, frowning down at whatever she just read on her phone. It’s sad that Chaz knows she’s talking to BJ right now.

“I’m sorry,” Bryce says, then, “Sorry,” to Chaz.

“No worries, I get to have an affair with a hot married lady,” Chaz says. “Living the dream.”

“Ignoring that,” Ashley says, then, “I’m not even wearing a ring. People are really bad at detective work.”

“I mean, to be fair, is anyone going to guess it’s Jared?” Chaz says. “Like, anyone who isn’t batshit crazy?”

“But instead Bryce gets married to me and we third wheel you on every date?” Ashley asks. “Oh, Bryce, you’re not a third wheel, we like having you around.”

“No, it’s cool,” Bryce says glumly.

“Look what you did,” she hisses at Chaz.

“That was totally you, Ash,” Chaz says.

“It’s cool, guys,” Bryce says, nose in his own phone.

“We’re the third wheel,” Ashley says.

“We’re totally the third wheel,” Chaz agrees, as BJ beams at whatever J just sent him.


	9. Panthers; unfair play

Whoever it was on their media team that arranged this? Yeah, they should be fired.

Well, the idea itself isn’t so bad. There are a couple of Panthers that can actually hold their own in the kitchen — Joe is emphatically not talking about himself, but Parey can pull together a good meal. And a lot of that is that Suzette’s legit awesome in the kitchen and he mostly just sous chefs, but he can hold his own. Captain America’s decent at cooking. Whenever they go to his he’s always got something pretty simple but pretty tasty waiting for them. 

Volkie has secret baking skills they only found out because he got super bored when he was rehabbing a foot injury and every time he limped into BB&T to see the docs and trainers he brought muffins or cookies or squares. They started out okay, not great but shit they were all going to converge on anyway, and then got pretty good by the time he got healthy. Sadly, there’ve been no baked good since.

So Joe guesses it’s less that someone should be fired for the idea than someone should be fired for putting Parey, Cap America, Volkie, and Ginner on one team, and Joe, Gally, Jumbo, and Skins on the other. Joe doesn’t know if Ginner can do shit — probably not, dude’s nineteen years old and billeting with their assistant coach and his wife, he probably hasn’t made himself anything more fancy than a sandwich in his entire life — but the other three? Unfair advantage. This is going to be a shitshow.

“You don’t have secret depths, do you, Jumbo?” Joe asks without much hope.

Jumbo does a slow blink at him.

“What’s the last thing you made yourself?” Joe tries.

“Kraft Dinner,” Jumbo says.

“Hey, me too!” Skins says.

They’re doomed.

*

Okay, before they even started Joe knew they were not only not going to win this thing, but that they weren’t going to come out of it with any dignity intact. Still, this is a step too far.

“What do you mean we can’t google recipes?” Joe asks. It’d be one thing if they could just do whatever they wanted — Joe’s idea for a three course meal is a salad, a sandwich, and like, he doesn’t even know, do they have cake mix in the pantry? — but no, they have a set menu, and that menu is shit Joe’s never made before in his life. Joe can slap a steak down in a pan, though fuck knows if he wants it a ‘perfect medium rare’ he’d go to a restaurant, but who knows how to bake cupcakes from scratch without a recipe? No one here.

Well, probably fucking Volkie, actually.

“Is ‘phone a friend’ an option here? Can I call my wife?” Joe asks. Jenn’s not a great cook either, but unlike him, she actually makes the effort sometimes, which makes her automatically way better. Plus they won’t be able to see if she googles it for him.

“No,” the monsters behind the camera say firmly.

“I wanna call my wife,” Joe says. Mostly just to bitch at this point.

“No outside help,” say the monsters.

“You don’t have secret depths, do you Gally?” Joe asks. He doesn’t know why he keeps reaching for secret depths. Joe’s known Gally for most of a decade, he probably would have stumbled on those depths at some point. Or, oh, seen Cody make any food in the history of ever.

“Gimme the knives!” Gally says.

Oh great, they’re all going to be dead by the end of this too.

*

“This is so wasteful,” Joe says sadly as the third steak gets thrown in the garbage, charred at the edges and overcooked as fuck. Joe knows this not because they cut into it to find out, but because Gally’s idea of testing for firmness was slapping Joe in the face with it. It was definitely over. And now Joe’s got steak juice on his face.

Across the kitchen, Parey and Volkie laugh happily about something. Volkie’s got flour all over his face from Gally’s last-ditch sabotage attempt. It doesn’t seem to have slowed them down any, considering they have time to be happy and joyful.

“How’re things going, Joe?” Captain America calls over.

“Go fuck yourself, Lourdy,” Joe retorts.

“Great, now we have to cut that,” say the monsters.

“Guys, watch me juggle!” Gally says, and Joe instinctively ducks just in time to avoid getting hit in the face with an egg as Gally shows, very clearly, that he can’t actually juggle.

“I want a trade,” Joe mumbles.


	10. Scratch, Joey;  surrogate

They’re halfway through an episode of Brookyn Nine-Nine when Joey’s agent calls. If it was anyone else calling, Nick would tell Joey to call back — TV time is sacred time — but an agent calling after hours is pretty much always going to be something important. Joey’s face goes white at whatever he hears, and Nick has his heart in his throat as he waits, trying and failing to hear what his agent’s saying, where Joey’s going, because it has to be that.

“Thanks Brett,” Joey says finally, literally the first thing he’s said, then, “Bye.”

“Where did they trade you?” Nick asks when Joey doesn’t say anything. He hopes — he hopes it’s close, or, no, he doesn’t hope it’s close, he hopes it isn’t a trade, but that isn’t realistic, so he hopes it’s really close. Nashville, or Chicago, or Dallas, except none of those are close at all, there’s nowhere close—

“I haven’t been traded,” Joey says, which should be a relief, except he sounds weird.

“What’s up?” Nick asks.

“You remember like, I had a boyfriend?” Joey says. “In college?”

“The asshole, yeah,” Nick says. “Did—”

“Deadspin just posted some pictures he sent them,” Joey says, voice squeaky in a way Nick would make fun of literally any other time, but not now, because agent calling plus ‘pictures’ plus squeaky voice adds up to —

“Nudes?” Nick says.

Joey ducks his head, which confirms that.

“Does it say they’re from a guy, or is he in them or—” Nick says.

“Yeah,” Joey mumbles.

“Fuck,” Nick says.

“My agent’s trying to get them taken down,” Joey says. “But they’re like — fuck.”

“Bud,” Nick says helplessly. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. He can’t just punch Deadspin until they take them down, or murder his ex. Well, he could, but if there’s one thing Nick knows about the internet it’s that it doesn’t matter how quick that gets taken down — it’s out now. Like, _Joey’s_ out now. Scouts PR probably already knows. Fuck, the guys might already know. Shithead reads Deadspin, and Shithead has a big fucking mouth.

“Oh god, my mom has an alert for me,” Joey says. He’s breathing so fast he’s almost hyperventilating. “I gotta call my parents.”

He’s definitely hyperventilating now. 

“Fuck, I can’t call my parents.”

“Give me your phone,” Nick says.

Joey gives him a bleak look.

“I’ll tell them,” Nick says.

Joey does this head shake that slowly turns into a nod, hands it over.

“Want to be in the room, or—”

The next head shake is very violent.

“Okay,” Nick says, and goes into Joey’s room, sits on the edge of the unmade bed, goes to recent contacts and finds ‘Mom’ accompanied by a heart. Casey would probably take it way better than Joey’s parents, but it’s not fair to ask her to tell them, so Kim it is.

“Hi hon,” Kim says when she picks up.

“Hi Kim,” Nick says. “It’s Nick.”

“Nick!” Kim says. “It’s good to hear from you.”

Nick can hear the exact second pleasant surprise turns into anxiety, even before she says, “Is Joey—”

“He’s not hurt,” Nick says. “He’s — his ex-boyfriend leaked some pictures of him online.”

Thank _fuck_ Joey’s already come out to his parents, or this would have been a whole other conversation.

“What kind of pictures?” Kim says, but kind of like she knows the answer and just wants to be wrong.

“Joey’s agent is trying to get them taken down now,” Nick says. “Just— don’t look him up right now?”

Kim’s quiet for a moment, and Nick picks at the edge of Joey’s comforter.

“How’s he doing?” Kim asks finally.

“He’s freaking out,” Nick says. “He wanted to call you, but—”

“I get it,” she says. “Give him my love?”

“Of course,” Nick says.

“Thanks honey,” she says. “Let him know — let him know he can call me or his dad any time. We’re not judging.”

“Of course,” Nick repeats.

“And Nick?” she says.

“Yeah,” Nick says.

“He probably needs you right now. You take care of him, okay?”

“I promise,” Nick says.


	11. Brandon/Milan; banter

Two days after the 76ers game, or what Milan is fondly remembering it as ‘Milan unsubtly hinting at Brandon he knew who he was and Brandon visibly squirming’ there’s a note waiting for him at his car. He picks it up slowly, enjoying the anticipation, wondering if it’s from Brandon, or one of the shithead Flyers, whether it’s got more hockey tickets, or basketball tickets, or a signed confession of his Flyer status.

It isn’t any of those — well, it is from Brandon, but there’s nothing but the note, a short one saying he’s heading out of town — Milan fights a stab of disappointment — but if Milan wanted to chat while he was away, he could reach him here, and then what’s presumably his phone number.

Milan feels faintly let down. There’s something about seeing a note tucked under your windshield wiper that isn’t quite the same as your phone buzzing with a text. Significantly more exciting. It reminds him a little of the letters he’d write camp friends when he was a kid, the way he’d always ask if he could be the one to check the mail, like it’d make any difference if one of his parents touched the letter first, like it’d take something away from that.

But then, Brandon’s schedule doesn’t exactly have him around all the time. Milan quickly checks the upcoming Flyers schedule, and they’ve got a long road trip starting in two days — tomorrow for them, most likely — so phone number makes sense, more sense than no notes for almost two weeks.

 _Work trip?_ Milan texts the number when he gets to work.

 _hobby trip_ , Brandon texts. _plus I’m escaping winter for some nice weather._

Milan goes to double check the road schedule. Mostly he isn’t escaping shit, just gets Midwest winter instead, but there is a stop in Dallas at the end of the trip, so he’s not lying, either about the weather or, technically, the hobby trip, considering he didn’t say it _wasn’t_ a work trip, just that it was a hobby trip, and presumably Brandon enjoys playing hockey on top of it being his career. Milan is genuinely impressed at how good Brandon is at dancing around the truth.

 _Cool, where you headed?_ Milan asks, waiting to see what the next dance move is.

 _travelling all over the place but texas weather is looking good_ , Brandon responds.

It is incredible how how misleading the truth can be.

 _Sounds like a demanding hobby._ , Milan texts back, biting down a grin.

 _it is,_ Brandon replies, along with a winking face, another unvarnished truth, a literal wink towards an ‘I’m onto you, Milan Hudec’. He’d be annoyed — okay, he is a bit annoyed, but he’d be more annoyed if he wasn’t technically doing the same thing to an extent. Brandon’s dancing around the truth, but Milan’s trying to trap him in it at the same time, and it’s become this game. This faintly ridiculous game.

He wonders if Brandon knows Milan knows, if that’s what the wink is for. He has to, right? Milan wasn’t exactly being subtle when he was pointing out how big a coincidence that there was a Brandon from Fredericton on the Flyers. So it’s just Milan pretending that Brandon doesn’t know he knows, and Brandon pretending, what, that he doesn’t know Milan knows that he knows? That’s a mouthful, and a headache to boot.

Milan’s having too much fun to stop.

 _Have fun._ , he texts, because pretending obliviousness or not, he’s not going to stoop to wishing a Flyer luck.

Brandon responds with a smiley, all teeth, and Milan finds himself grinning back.

*

It’s funny, after the incredibly slow nature of leaving notes under doors and on cars, how fast texting feels. Milan texts a lot. No one is in his family is really a phone person, so since he moved away it’s been emails and texts and the ridiculous mess that is the family chat in Facebook Messenger, and that’s on top of friends he keeps in touch with now that things are long distance, who range from daily updates to once in a blue moon ‘I saw this and thought of you’ ones. Texting is not exactly novel to him.

And yet it feels strange, typing something and receiving a response from Brandon minutes or hours later, rather than the next day, or checking his phone on a break and finding texts from Brandon, ones that flirt with revealing exactly who he is — afternoon naps are not generally a part of adult life, Milan is very sad to say — but never quite bridging that gap. He’ll admit to, say, being at the airport, but it isn’t followed by ‘for a private jet to take me to my next NHL game because I am a Philadelphia Flyer’. Or send Milan a picture of a very good-looking steak and say ‘dinner with friends’ but doesn’t add ‘who are presumably Philadelphia Flyers, because I, Brandon Milligan, am a Philadelphia Flyer’.

At a certain point Milan’s got to admit to himself he’s friends with said Philadelphia Flyer. Well, sort of. Friends don’t usually try to trick friends with a secret Non-Flyer identity, he suspects. Nor do they go out of their way to try to reveal the secret Flyer identity.

But there are only a certain amount of times you go out of your way to interact with someone, or see them, or text them, without admitting that you have feelings for them. Friendly feelings, Milan means. No other feelings. That’d be disastrous. For one, he’d probably be disowned. For another, Milan knows enough about hockey culture, and he has no interest in being beaten up. Does Brandon seem like the kind of guy who’d do that? Maybe not, but fuck knows Zatovic does, and Brandon hangs out with him constantly. You get judged by the company you keep.

Speaking of which: Milan is judging himself.

He’s especially judging himself when he watches a Flyers-Blackhawks game, the first Flyers game he’s ever watched without the express purpose of cheering against them. Not that he isn’t cheering against them, because he absolutely is, but he will admit to cheering a little when Brandon ties up the game late, because that has to feel good — Brandon doesn’t score much, that’s not really his role, and it’s against a former team to boot. He’s still happy that the Flyers lose it in OT.

 _Your Fredricton boy scored tonight._ , Milan texts, to wash away the dirty feeling of cheering a Flyers goal with some good old fashioned trolling. He specifically went to look up the spelling of Fredericton so he could spell it wrong, to boot, because he remembers, with relish, the way Brandon flinched when Milan said the guy from Fredericton playing for the Flyers was named Mulligan, how hard it seemed for him not to correct Milan.

 _I saw_ , Brandon texts back about twenty minutes later, along with a smiley.

I bet you did, Milan thinks, but doesn’t text it, because there’s no fun in making it too obvious.


	12. Jared, Gabe, Raf, various; welcome wagon

Raf does his best not to pay attention to the trade deadline. It’s not helpful, speculating, or buying into the media’s speculation, leaves him with a low pit of anxiety that flares every time he thinks about it. So he blocks it out.

When he gets out of practice that morning, the roster seems to be intact, but he’s got two texts, one from Grace that says, _Poor Jared._ And another from Chaz that simply says _brutal_ , so obviously he’s paying attention now.

The Bruins. That’s about as far from Calgary as Jared can get. And it’s hard enough being in a relationship long-distance when Grace can come down whenever she doesn’t have classes, or even skip a few lectures because she’s asked a friend to take notes. With Bryce’s schedule, well — Chaz nailed it.

“Fuck,” Raf says quietly, and when David nudges his arm, “My friend got traded across the country.”

“Trades are inevitable,” David says, then after a pause, “That sucks though.”

“Yeah,” Raf says.

They’re out at lunch when Raf gets an update from Chaz, one that’s just a string of exclamation marks, and Raf is half expecting to find out Bryce has been traded to the Bruins too, not that they’d have room for him after picking up Jacobi. But no, Jared just went back across the country, this time to the Canucks. 

Raf huffs out a laugh. Everywhere Jared goes is a team he’s hated his entire life. Well, with the exception of the Bruins, probably, but he thinks Jared is probably happier about the Canucks than he was about the Bruins.

David makes an inquisitive noise.

“My friend?” Raf says. “Who went to the Bruins? He just got traded to the Canucks. So. He’s probably happy to be closer to home.”

“Tell him to ignore anything Dmitry says,” Oleg says. “For his own good.”

“About you?” Raf asks.

“About anything,” Oleg says.

*

Gabe’s always been a little on edge on Trade Deadline Day. He doesn’t think anyone isn’t — even the guys who know they’re safe could lose a linemate or a buddy. It’s a business, but it’s a brutal one sometimes.

The edge grows sharper when, halfway through practice, he sees Brian leaning over the boards, watching them warm up for a scrimmage. Gabe wonders if he’s about to ask Coach to pull someone aside, maybe more than just one. Coach drifts over to Brian when he sees him, nods at whatever he says, before skating over to the clustered red team, and Gabe watches anxiously before Brian gets his attention with a ‘Marksy!’.

His stomach drops. He’s been told, over and over, that he’s franchise, fan favourite, Canuck for life, that he’s there as much for his presence in his room, his A, his name on the 2012 Cup, the equivalent of a verbal handshake. Him and Dmitry are the only two left from that team, including coaching staff, front office, the Vets. It’s been weird watching it change around him, but it’d be worse, going somewhere else.

“I’m getting you some help on the wing, Marksy,” Brian says.

“Oh thank fuck,” Gabe says, and only a little bit because it means he isn’t going anywhere. Gabe and Dmitry have had six different linemates this season, between line shuffles, and injuries, and more injuries, and then even more injuries on top of that. “You’re my hero.”

Brian gives him a salute, one Gabe returns.

“I’ll shoot you his number, send him a welcome message when you guys are through here?” Brian asks.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Gabe says.

“Good man,” Brian says, clapping Gabe’s shoulder, a dull thud through the padding.

He’s got an email from Brian when he gets out, a name and a phone number. Gabe knows the name, mostly because he’s faced off against Halla enough times, won the face-off battle almost every time, just to see him tear through their D-corps like tissue paper, had to scramble back to try — and fail — to fill the holes himself enough times in the past two years.

 _Hey, welcome to the Canucks!_ He texts. _This is Gabe Markson. I’m probably your new centre. Sorry about the downgrade. Let me know if there’s anything you need. Whether that’s a ride from the airport or help finding a place, we got you._

“I want to send a message too,” Dmitry says, leaning over Gabe’s shoulder, and Gabe sighs and sends Dmitry his number. He’s going to know what he’s dealing with soon enough, and it’s not like he has a choice in coming. Gabe will just apologise for whatever it is Matheson’s received when he meets him.


	13. Scratch, Joey; good start

There’s nothing wrong with Money, exactly. He seems like a nice enough dude. It’s just that Nick and Keefer had a good thing going. 

Was Keefer the best road roomie ever? No, and at the beginning he was kind of the worst, but after Nick found a good white noise playlist to drown out the snores, and Keefer agreed to wash the fucking sink after he shaved, and agreed not to complain about Nick doing pushups and sit-ups in their room — weird thing to bug him, but okay — in exchange for Nick not getting on him for leaving his shit lying everywhere for Nick to trip over, things were chill.

Now Nick’s got to adjust to a whole other dude who probably has his own fun annoying habits for Nick to discover. Maybe he talks in his sleep, or leaves the shower curtain open and gets the bathroom floor wet, or can’t sleep without the TV on or something. All things Nick’s unfortunately had to deal with over the years.

It goes fine at first. Money unpacks a couple things, bathroom shit and cords and stuff, hangs up his suit, but leaves the rest of it all in his suitcase, same as Nick, so hopefully Nick won’t be tripping all over the place anymore. He snores a bit, but it’s nothing Nick’s white noise playlist can’t handle, and he makes no snarky comments when Nick does his morning workout, just yawns and disappears into the bathroom. There’s no water on the floor after, and the sink’s clean. 

When Nick gets out of the shower the empty bottle of water that was sitting on the nightstand between their bed has been moved to a recycling bin. When they get back from practice Money flips through channels, volume on low so Nick doesn’t have to ask him to turn it down so he can listen to a podcast, though he pauses it when Money stops on the Simpsons. Monorail episode. Best fucking episode.

“Best fucking episode,” Nick says.

“Right?” Money says, and only then does he turn the volume up above a murmur.

“How’s the new roomie?” Buzzy asks Nick over dinner.

“Pretty great, honestly,” Nick says. Him and Buzzy and Sax are some of the last dudes to leave, and when Nick gets back to the room Money’s watching Parks&Rec on his laptop.

“I can put in headphones,” Money says.

“Nah,” Nick says. “Cool if I watch?”

“‘Course,” Money says, and angles his laptop so they can both get comfortable. Keefer had shit taste in TV, so this is a massive upgrade.

Nick is starting to think he landed the perfect roommate. He’s got like, no flaws. It’s incredible.

“Is that your third cookie?” Money asks, halfway through the next episode. “We ate dinner like an hour ago.”

Or maybe he’s judgy as fuck about Nick’s eating habits.

“Fourth,” Nick says around his cookie, and when Money wrinkles his nose, he doubles down, chewing loudly. Nick works his ass off to stay in shape, he deserves cookies. Hell, that’s one of the reasons he works his ass off: get to play a sport he loves for a living, of course, be healthy and fit, yeah, whatever. He wouldn’t give up cookies for anything. That’d be like asking Willy to give up checking himself out in every mirror he sees: he couldn’t do it if he tried.

“That’s disgusting,” Money says.

“You’re disgusting,” Nick says.

“Your face,” Money mutters.

“My face?” Nick asks. “That’s what you’ve got? ‘My face’?”

“‘Your face’ is totally an acceptable insult, considering your face,” Money says.

“ _Your_ face,” Nick snaps.

Well, this is going great.


	14. Brian Foster, Jared/Bryce; winging it

You know, Brian was really expecting it to be a routine meeting. Trades are never easy — he knows that better than fucking anyone, it’s like the NHL collectively decided he’d be the fun bonus toss-in during every multi-piece trade his teams were involved in — but once it’s done it’s done. You’re there now. 

He’s going to tell Jared what he expects from him, how him and his line fit in in the jigsaw puzzle of the Canucks roster. He’s going to let Jared know that whatever he needs to make arrangements for — house hunting, a car lease, bringing his family here — well, he’s too young for that bit to be relevant — that they’ve got people who can help him with that. He’s going to tell him again how happy they are to have him.

And they’re _ecstatic_ to have him. Brian swears it’s like they’ve been cursed by the hockey gods up and down the right side, and he was frankly incredulous that Jared was even available at the deadline considering the powerhouse that was his line with Julius Halla. And not just offensively: Jared was the rock that kept that line defensively responsible, and he’s a perfect fit for their shutdown line, will give Marksy a chance to push more instead of falling back to cover Dima.

And it does start out routine. Brian tells him what he expects, Jared responds in a way that satisfies Brian that he knows what’s expected of him. Brian tells him that if he needs any help, they’ve got him, Jared lets him know he’s got family in town, which is a relief. Not that they wouldn’t be happy to help him out, obviously, but it’s always easier when you get to a town where you already know people. Another thing Brian knows from plenty of experience.

And then, after the ‘you need any help let us know’ and before the ‘we are so happy to have you’, the meeting is no longer routine, because Jared clarifies the ‘family’ to say, specifically, he’s staying with his mother-in-law.

Brian likes his in-laws, but that is still not something he would ever, ever consider doing. “Brave man,” he says.

“I’m married,” Jared adds, like Brian didn’t get that. And he is pretty young for it, but a lot of hockey players marry young. Brian wasn’t one of them, which often made him feel like the exception.

“Congratulations?” Brian says.

“To a guy,” Jared says, twisting the ring on his finger, like a lucky charm, or maybe more like a stress ball.

Brian’s starting to get why this was relevant information to tell him.

“Ah,” Brian says. Jared looks stressed as fuck, so Brian adds, “If you’re worried about the team, you should know it’s a really good bunch of guys. Inclusive. They’re not going to have a problem with it. Gabe’s our YCP rep if you wanted to talk to him.”

Gabe, Brian’s sure, would be a fuck of a lot better to talk to than Brian. Not that Brian’s not supportive — he is! — but Marksy’s got a little more experience with this. He’s much better at not just stream-of-consciousnessing whatever comes to his head. Sometimes Brian thinks Marksy would be better at this than he would. Brian is fully prepared to make an impassioned job offer when he retires.

“That’s—” Jared says. “He’s a hockey player.”

“NHLer?” Brian asks, hoping like hell he isn’t.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

Fuck. Okay. This is very relevant.

“Okay,” Brian says, leaning back in his chair. “Okay. Well. That’s a little different.”

Brian hastily adds “Not a problem!”, because Jared’s so pale he’s practically grey, probably feels sick to his stomach right now. “You’ve of course — it’s not a problem, okay Jared? You’ve got the right to be married to who you want to be married to.”

Way to state the obvious, Brian. Except maybe it isn’t. He wonders if this is why Deslauriers flipped him so easy. Fuck, he hopes not. What a nightmare for the kid.

“Right,” Jared says, still more grey than not. “Thank you.”

“Please tell me you’re not like doing a Riley-Lapointe, married to a rival thing though,” Brian says before he can stop himself.

“Um?” Jared says. Brian doesn’t like that ‘um’. ‘Um’ is not no.

Fuck.

“Okay,” Brian says. Fuck. “Okay! I. That’s fine!”

“Sorry?” Jared says meekly.

Brian thinks. Former Oiler, and the kid’s from Alberta, so chances are it’s a player there rather than in Cali. He tries to remember where Jared’s from. Played for the Hitmen, he knows, so even split on Calgary or Edmonton.

Or Brian could just stop speculating and ask.

“You’re an Alberta boy, right Jared?” Brian asks.

“Yes sir,” Jared says.

“Your husband’s back in Alberta?” Brian asks.

“Yes sir,” Jared repeats, and Brian takes a moment to be impressed by his detective skills before he realises that’s inappropriate. He wonders if it’s Halla? Also inappropriate. None of his business unless Jared tells him.

“I’m not going to ask who it is,” Brian says. “Because it’s not any of my business. If you want to tell me, you’re of course welcome to tell me, but you don’t have to.”

“Okay, sir,” Jared says.

“Stop calling me sir,” Foster says. “I’m maybe ten years older than you.”

You are not ten years older than a kid on his ELC, Brian.

“Sorry,” Jared says instead of calling him on that blatant lie.

“You play as hard against him as you do anyone else, right?” Brian asks. He already knows the answer, but it has the effect he wants, Jared relaxing in his seat a little, back on more comfortable footing.

“Yeah,” Jared says. “Of course.”

“Good,” Brian says. “Maybe have a chat with Gabe? If there’s anything you’re concerned about, or — he’s good people, he’ll listen.”

And he’ll probably do a much better job than Brian’s doing right now. God Brian hopes he talks to Gabe.

“Sure, maybe,” Jared says, which isn’t a yes, but Brian can’t make him.

“Have I told you how happy we are to have you on the roster?” Brian says, fully aware of the answer of that one too, but it has the response he’s looking for: Jared smiles for the first time since he walked in the door.


	15. Scratch, Joey, Owen; instinctive response

Nick’s almost as nervous as Joey is, the night Owen’s coming to meet the team.

“I can’t believe this is the last time I’m ever going to see Owen,” Joey moans into his hands after the win. Nick half thinks Joey was hoping to lose just so this wouldn’t happen, but well — sucks to be on the best team in the league, then. “He’s going to ghost me after this, I swear.”

Okay, Nick’s nowhere near as nervous as Joey is.

“You keep talking about him like he’s the nicest dude who ever lived,” Nick reminds him. “He’s not going to ghost you.”

But he fully gets where Money’s coming from. If anyone could drive Owen off, it’d be the Kansas City Scouts.

“Have you met our teammates,” Joey says, clearly on the same page.

“Yeah, but he’s already met you,” Nick says. “So obviously he’s cool hanging out with losers.”

Joey gives him an offended face, but offended is better than terrified, so: mission success. “You’re a loser.”

“Your mom’s a loser,” Nick says on auto-pilot, then immediately regrets it. Even if moms weren’t automatically off-limits, and they are, Kim’s great. “Sorry. Your mom is great.”

“Both your moms are losers,” Shithead says, once again proving whoever first gave him that nickname was on point.

“Trigger,” Nick says, and sees Trigger’s head perk up, face cheerfully blood-thirsty. “Go.”

Trigger tackles Shithead before he has a chance to escape.

“That’s some good work, Trigger,” Nick tells him over Shithead’s pleas for help. Positive reinforcement’s important for goalies.

“Thanks Scratchy,” Trigger says happily, then smacks down Shithead’s flailing hands.

Joey’s knee is bouncing like crazy during the Uber ride to the bar. Trigger, up front, meets Nick’s eye in the rearview mirror, looking like he’s going to say something, but stays quiet when Nick shakes his head. Chirping Money right now is a fine line to walk — one wrong thing and he’ll spin out, he’s so anxious. Nick considers it his duty to make sure Joey doesn’t like, lock himself in the bathroom or murder Willy with his bare hands before Owen gets there. Once Owen’s there, it’ll probably be fine.

Maybe.

Okay, Nick’s really fucking nervous. This is the first time Money’s been interested in a guy since Nick’s known him, or at least the first time he’s been interested enough to put his feelings on the line enough to admit it. Joey deserves way better than the shit hand he got dealt with his ex, so skittish and self-conscious and gun shy about opening himself up to anyone now that it kind of breaks Nick’s heart. If Owen’s as good a guy as Joey makes him sound like he is, he’d be the perfect boyfriend for Joey, who deserves that, _needs_ that after all the shit Zach threw at him.

If the Scouts don’t fuck it up for him.

“I’m gonna puke,” Money mumbles.

Nick kind of feels him, there.

“Don’t be a baby,” he says instead, and when Joey grumpily elbows him Nick gives him a supportive elbow back.

The place is busy, too busy for them all to sit together, at least until Willy starts flashing smiles and offers to buy people rounds, which gets people clearing out. Joey takes a spot with an eye on the door, watching it intently, like a dog who hears his owner approaching or something, but there’s less tail wagging and more knee-bouncing anxiety. Whatever Willy’s saying in his ear clearly isn’t helping, considering from down the table Nick catches Joey saying, “And you know Scratch would help me hide your body.”

Which: true. He hopes it doesn’t come to that, but totally true.

Nick’s only halfway through his beer when Joey pops up, mumbling about getting a refill, which is probably not a good idea, considering, but Nick’s not his keeper.

“Oh, hey, Owen’s here,” Willy says like, a minute later, so maybe that was less a drink reason and more a making sure he intercepted Owen reason.

“Where?” Nick asks, craning his head, but he doesn’t actually need Willy’s answer, because he quickly finds Joey in the crowd, and the look on his face makes it crystal clear that’s Owen he’s talking to. Joey’s leaning into him, grinning this ridiculously huge, objectively stupid grin, so obvious even from fifty feet away that Owen must be a fucking moron if he doesn’t realise that Joey’s into him, Nick doesn’t care if he’s getting his Masters in Science Genius Shit.

Nick doesn’t know what it is, but something rubs him wrong about what he’s seeing. Maybe the way Joey’s looking at him, or the body language, or who knows what. Nick trusts his instincts more than he trusts his thoughts, and his instincts are blaring red-alert shit at him even though it just looks like a normal conversation, with a bonus, very infatuated looking Money. They’re at the bar for awhile, and Nick wonders if Joey’s warning Owen about them. Probably a good idea.

“Stare, much?” Willy asks.

“Shut up, Willy,” Nick mumbles. He’s got a damn crick in his neck by the time Joey tilts his head towards the tables at the back, Owen putting a hand on Joey’s arm before he follows him, and Nick jerks his head away, looks down at the table. He has the sudden instinct to just not be there right now, and again, he trusts his instincts.

“Gonna get a drink,” he mumbles. No one seems to hear him except Trigger, who gives him a weird look, probably because he’s still got half a beer in front of him, but thankfully doesn’t say anything. Nick takes the long way around so he won’t run into Joey and Owen, wondering what the hell’s wrong with him. He’s never been pissed when his buds have partnered up before, and yeah, okay, that’s never come up with Joey, perma-single, but Nick was hyped when it looked like that might change. Hell, Joey probably wouldn’t have even asked Owen to hang out if Nick hadn’t taken things into his own hands.

It’s probably a good thing that Nick went to the bar when he had half a beer left, because he’s long since drunk it by the time the bartender quits flirting with a girl leaning over the bar to notice him. Which is impressive, because it’s not like Nick’s easy to miss. He looms. He’s a loomer. He’s a loomer tall enough to see across to the back, where Owen’s laughing, head back like whatever Joey or Willy said was fucking hilarious. Neither of them are funny enough for that laugh.

Nick proactively orders two beers, thinks about ordering a drink for Money too. He usually would, but then he’d probably have to buy Owen one or be considered rude, and he doesn’t know what Owen drinks. Also he doesn’t want to buy him a drink. He can get his own fucking drinks. Or Money will, more likely. Whatever.

He drinks both of those beers at the bar, trying to figure out why he’s off, is no more settled when they’re done. He should head out, he thinks. He needs to. Except his coat’s at the table. He could text someone to bring it to him, but that’d be weird. They’d want to know what’s up, and he doesn’t know the answer to that. So. Coat. Or maybe once he meets Owen he’ll be fine. Maybe Joey transferred all his nerves to Nick and once Nick meets him, he’ll settle.

“Where’ve you been?” Joey asks when Nick comes back.

“Talking to people,” Nick says, and hates the sceptical look Joey gives him. He could have been talking to people. Joey doesn’t know everything about him.

“Hi,” Owen says. “I’m Owen.”

He has a nice voice. A nice smile too, Nick learns, because he grins when he says it, teeth all shiny white. Nice everything, from the way Joey tells it.

Nick didn’t know hate at first sight was a thing, but apparently it is. Like, at a visceral level. But it doesn’t matter how he feels, Money’s going to freak out if Nick’s not nice, so Nick’s going to be nice.

“Hi,” Nick says, and it comes out flatter than he means it to. “Nick.”

“Scratch,” Money tells Owen, with this little in-jokey elbow to Owen’s side.

“Scratch!” Owen says, like he has the permission to call Nick that. It’s a team thing, and last Nick checked, Owen wasn’t team. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Joey talks about you all the time.”

Nick — apparently can’t be nice to him, because all the responses that immediately come to mind are rude as hell.

“Cool,” Nick finally manages, and it comes out flat too, and, because his original instinct to get out of dodge was right one, “I’m gonna go grab a drink.”

Joey follows him to the bar, because of course he fucking does. That wasn’t subtle, whatever that was. Nick doesn’t even know what it was. He needs to not be here right now, with the stupid bartender who takes forever because he’s too busy trying to pull every girl he talks to, and his stupid team, and Owen’s stupid perfect face, Joey fawning all over him like he’s the greatest guy who ever fucking lived.

“What was that?” Joey asks.

“What was what,” Nick says, “God, is he not aware he’s paid to bartend and not try to pull all night?”

Seriously, this must be the fifth girl he’s tried it with, and it’s wrapped around from pathetic to offensive and back to pathetic. And has been slow as fuck service to boot. What’s Nick supposed to do, wait ten minutes for an overpriced beer he doesn’t even want? Fuck that.

“The fuck’s up with you?” Joey asks.

Nick doesn’t fucking _know_.

“Nothing,” Nick says. “You know, I’m not feeling this. Fuck that guy, I’m going to head out. Enjoy — whatever.”

He can feel Joey gaping at the back of his head as he leaves, has to muscle through some groups who aren’t paying attention, ruder than he’d usually be. Which is apparently his thing tonight.

He’s half expecting Joey to follow him out, catch him while he waits for his Uber, but no. Of course not. Joey’s got better shit to do. Owen’s waiting, after all. He forgot his coat, but whatever. He can handle the cold for five minutes. He texts Trigger, telling him he forgot it, doesn’t send it until he’s in the backseat so it isn’t something he can just go back and retrieve.

Nick gets home. He cracks open a beer and turns on the TV. It goes straight to his last channel, highlights of the night, so Nick’s just in time to watch Willy make a play as pretty as he is, Jonny losing his mind over it in the booth. Nick mutes it. He needs to think. Turns the volume on thirty seconds later, because actually, no, he doesn’t want to think. Hits the bathroom after beer one, washes his hands as his phone buzzes on the counter. He doesn’t want to hear from anyone right now, but he can’t help himself, wondering if it’s from Joey.

It’s from Joey.

_they have not run out of embarrassing stories save me from this torture._

Nick doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t.

 _Good news is no one died._ , Joey texts him two or three beers later. Nick doesn’t know what that means. Well, he does — no one died — but he doesn’t know if that means Joey’s on his way home, or on his way to Owen’s, or —

Nick stares at his phone for awhile, furious for some reason he can’t figure out. Nothing in his head makes sense tonight.

 _Great fucking news money_ , he types, then deletes it.

A thumbs up emoji. He deletes that too.

Joey probably doesn’t care what he has to say anyway. He’s probably fucking — fucking. Nick doesn’t know what.

Nick doesn’t know what beer he’s at when he goes to bed, he just knows he’s going to bed because there aren’t any beers left in the fridge. Or anywhere else — he ran out of cold beers a few bottles back, stuck what he had in left in the two-four in the freezer. Shouldn’t have even bothered, because they were still lukewarm when he drank them.

He stares at his ceiling, and it spins, dizzily, back at him. Realises he never texted Joey back, and that’s not like him, the kind of thing that would make Joey worry, squints at the too bright as he punches in his passcode. Looks at Joey’s text. Nobody died. Terrific. Nick still doesn’t know what to say.

He goes with one of the responses his phone recommends, a simple thumbs up, because fuck knows he doesn’t feel like using the smiley or the ‘great!’, and he shouldn’t be able to sleep right now, not with the mess his head is, but thanks to the beer, whatever tatters of self-preservation he has left, he’s out like a light within a minute.


	16. Trigger, Scratch; first impressions

And for those who’ve asked, here’s the ‘Boy Named Sue’ part of Trigger’s name: he refers to himself as Lee throughout this, but as you’ll see in the tags, that’s short for Leslie. Roll calls with new/substitute teachers + kids being The Worst Sometimes gave him a bit of a complex about it.

Lee starts fucking up before he even starts. It’s not his fault, but it’s still a fuck up, his bags getting lost somewhere on the flight to Chicago, so he’s walking into his first day as a Wolves — a Wolf? Part of his new pack? Of wolves? — without equipment, which is kind of serious no matter what position you play, but impossible to get past for a goalie. They don’t exactly have spare shit for him, and if they did it wouldn’t help anyway: stuff’s different from goalie to goalie, but especially since their starter’s about five inches shorter than he is.

So his first game as a Wolf isn’t a game at all. He wasn’t supposed to play anyway, but he can’t even ride the bench without equipment, and since he got called up because of injury, it’s his new goalie coach sitting on the bench with the ball cap instead, not seeming particularly happy about it. So that’s a good first impression.

His next impressions aren’t any better. His dad couriers some of his extra gear just as United finds his baggage, so the teammates he’s staying with until he finds a place are tripping all over his blocker, mask, pads. His first start they lose 8-1. A lopsided loss like that is never just the goalie’s fault, but he won’t deny it was also his, everything in him feeling off-balance, wrong, all his instinctive motions just a millisecond too late.

They go on the road, and Lee sits by himself at breakfast, eats lunch out, sits at the end of the table at dinner. Nobody talks to him and he talks to nobody. Another game like that and he’ll be riding the bus in the ECHL. It’s the slimmest thing, the chance you get to prove yourself in the pros, especially when you’re called up because someone else is hurt, and Lee’s fucking it up.

He’s just finishing up, head down, one of the last guys left, when he takes an elbow to the side, friendly enough.

“What,” he says flatly. Fuck, even that’s not coming out right.

“You up to anything, Lee?” the guy asks.

“You’re—” Lee says. He’s got trouble with names at the best of times, and being thrown into a room and expected to learn dozens at once isn’t the best of times. “Forward?” The fact he doesn’t know his name means forward. He makes an effort with the D. A guy needs to know who his D are.

“Yeah,” he says. “Nick. Smash Bros marathon, you in?”

“I dunno,” Lee says.

“You’re in,” Nick decides. “C’mon.”

Lee doesn’t know if he’s imagining the guys already in the room Nick leads him to getting tense. Maybe it’s just that he’s tense, but he did just lose them a game. No one likes a loser.

“Barton, catch,” someone says, and Lee doesn’t even have time to blink before there’s a controller lobbed at him, one that smacks him in the arm before hitting the floor.

He’s definitely not imagining the staring now. Goalies are supposed to catch shit. It’s literally their job.

Someone snorts when he leans down to pick it up, doesn’t bother to hide it, or their muttered ‘Guess that explains the loss’. Lee’s always felt awkward on his teams, apart, but usually it’s despite the fact the guys are nice to him. You’re nice to your goalie. Lee guesses that only holds if your goalie’s actually good enough to be on the team, though.

“Shut up, shithead,” Nick says. “You gonna act like your turnovers had nothing to do with the L?”

“Whoa, Scratch has claws today,” someone says.

“You’ve got first dibs, Lee,” Nick says. “Except Pikachu. Pikachu’s banned.”

“Rest in Pikachu,” someone says solemnly. Lee thinks it was the same guy as before.

“Um,” Lee says, then picks Yoshi.

“Excellent choice, a man after my own heart,” Nick says.

*

The next game Lee plays is 5-2, and not in their favor. They’re riding the line for contention right now, they can’t afford to lose these games, especially since it was against the Marlies, who are near the bottom of the standings. The room’s quiet after, Lee talking to no one and no one talking to Lee, except Nick when he’s leaving, though that’s not really words, just an elbow to the side and a small smile.

Lee lets in more goals than he stops at the next optional practice, starts gathering the pucks himself when it’s all over. That’s not a goalie’s job, but it means that he’s less likely to have to talk to anyone in the room after. He’ll take his time.

Nick skates over to him, gets on his knees to help him pick them up.

“You don’t have to,” Lee says.

“Neither do you, this is Cutter’s job,” Nick says.

Lee shrugs.

“You want me to stick around for a bit?” Nick asks. “Give you some practice?”

“I—” Lee says. “Okay.”

He stops every single one of the first ten Nick lobs at him, and Nick might be going easy on him, but by his outraged, “Oh _fuck_ off, Barton,” after the tenth, he doesn’t think so.

He pulls his mask up to take a sip of water, grins at Nick.

“You look like a fucking shark right now, it’s terrifying,” Nick says, and Lee grins wider.


	17. Jared, Dmitry, Gabe/Stephen; Jared meeting Stephen

“Hey,” Gabe says before Jared’s third practice. “You want to have lunch with me and Dmitry today?”

“Sure?” Jared says.

“Sushi good for you?” Gabe asks.

“Uh,” Jared says. “I’m allergic to shellfish.”

“I don’t eat it either,” Gabe says. “But we don’t have to do sushi. You good with banh mi, Dima?”

Dmitry gives him a thumbs up from Jared’s other side.

“You cool with Vietnamese?” Gabe asks. “There’s a really great restaurant by my house.”

“Sure,” Jared says.

Jared was expecting to eat there, but they do takeout instead, Gabe taking their orders in the locker room and giving Jared his address. Somehow Gabe beats Jared there, even with the food, is waiting on the porch to let him and Dmitry in. 

His place looks like, well — a place. Like, a proper house, with nice furniture and art on the walls and everything. An adult place. Not that Jared isn’t staying at an adult place right now, but it’s still weird to see the difference compared to his apartment back in Edmonton, or Julius’, or his place with Bryce.

There’s a guy sitting in the dining room on a laptop, which is also a little weird.

“Hey, you’re home,” Gabe says.

“Have to drive out to Kelowna for the game,” Stephen says. “So did a half-day.”

“Forgot about that,” Gabe says. “Stephen, Jared, my new liney.”

“Enjoying the cursed line?” Stephen asks.

People really need to stop telling Jared his line is cursed, it’s starting to have a psychological impact.

“So far no curse?” Jared says.

“Don’t talk about the curse,” Dmitry tells Stephen. “It makes it more powerful.”

Stephen rolls his eyes. “On that note, enjoy your curse,” he says, closing the laptop and standing up. “Nice to meet you, Jared.”

“You too,” Jared says.

“Stephen’s my—” Gabriel says.

He’s interrupted by Stephen yelling from the kitchen.

“Gabriel if you’re going to leave dishes in the sink at least rinse them first!”

“Those are literally yours, Stephen,” Gabe calls back. “I loaded the dishwasher after dinner and I got breakfast on the way to practice.”

“Family from out of town?” Jared guesses. Jared can picture Erin doing the exact same thing if she ever stayed over. Well, not with Elaine, she’d probably be sweet with Elaine, but if she was just visiting Jared? Dish slander would be the least of it.

“Nah, not family — well, not biologically,” Gabe says. “And Stephen lives here. And by here I mean ‘here’, not Vancouver. He’s an agent.”

“Your agent?” Jared asks. He — could not think of a weirder living set-up. Now he’s imagining Bryce and Summers bunking together. There’d be bloodshed by the end of the first day. Probably before that, honestly.

Gabe laughs. “Nah.”

“Stephen played hockey,” Dmitry says. “Moved to Vancouver and became agent after he got injured. He and Gabe have known one another for, what, thirty years?”

“Fuck off, Kurms, you’re the only one over thirty here,” Gabe says, and Dmitry being the oldest person in the room is about as much as a mind-fuck as the fact Dmitry has sired multiple children.

Gabe could afford to live alone, even in a house this nice, but then, Vancouver’s an expensive as hell city, and Jared doesn’t know what agents make. Well, Summers probably makes more than Jared and Bryce combined, but Stephen looks like he’s still in his twenties — presumably he’s around Gabe’s age — so he’s probably not a senior agent. 

And Jared, who’s been looking at places to rent lately, is now completely aware how far a dollar does not go in Vancouver. Elaine has made it very clear that Jared is welcome to stay with her as long as he wants, which is good, because Jared thinks it’s going to take awhile to find somewhere that costs anywhere near what he paid for his place in Edmonton, but isn’t like — a hovel. He’s still faintly in shock at what a million dollar house looks like here versus back home.

There’s clattering from the kitchen. If Jared had to guess at what it was, he’d go for very aggressive loading of a dishwasher.

“Gabriel’s in trouble,” Dmitry sing-songs.

“They’re his dishes,” Gabe mutters.

“Still in trouble,” Dmitry says.

“I’ll get us plates,” Gabe says, putting the food down on the table.

There’s a particularly loud clatter from the kitchen, and they collectively wince.

“If there are any,” Gabe says.


	18. Joey, Scouts, Gabe; chin up

Joey’s never dreaded a game more than the one against the Canucks. Not when he was playing at maybe ten percent capacity at the end of a flu, ended up in the med room while getting lectured like crazy by the team doc about dehydration and not lying about feeling game ready, not when the Scouts were walking into a 0-3 series record on home ice and terrified of losing big in front of the fans, not when he came back with a cage after the first time he got his teeth knocked out, couldn’t stop flinching every time a stick got too close to his face.

He could be a healthy scratch, he was told they’d scratch him if he needed more time, wouldn’t even say personal reasons, would say ‘illness’ or ‘upper body injury’ or whatever, but no one would be stupid enough to buy that he just happened to be too hurt to play the first game after a picture of his dick — not to mention a picture of his hand on someone _else’s_ dick — got splashed all over the internet. He’s not a coward. Okay, he’s totally a coward, but he doesn’t want people to think he’s one.

Joey guesses if there was one solitary silver lining in the shitshow of his life it’s that Zach leaked the pictures during a small break in play, so Joey got to have two days of hiding in his apartment with Scratch before he had to show his face to the team. Scratch sticks to him like a threatening shadow when they walk in, but apparently he doesn’t even need to, or it’s working too well or something, because the guys are being weird. Like, in a good way, Joey guesses. He thinks literally every single one of them has come up to him and said ‘we’ve got your back’, even Shithead, but they’re being super nice, which is just — not them at all. Hell, Trigger gave him a hug, and typically the only time Trigger’s willing to give or receive hugs is in the ‘hug your goalie’ line after a win.

Joey’s genuinely shaking when they’re getting their gear on, so bad he has trouble taping his socks, has to focus to stop the tremble before Scratch offers to do it for him, ends up tying his skate laces like Joey’s a kid back in Mites getting his mom or dad to tighten his skates for him. He manages eventually, but he feels about as good as he did stepping onto the ice as when he was shaking that flu. Maybe he should have taken the offer to sit this one out, but — no, he thinks he’d feel just as bad sitting in the press box, if not worse.

Joey takes a couple shots at Trigger, settles down to stretch in the spot he usually settles on home ice. He doesn’t realize how close that spot is to center until a Canuck is hovering about six feet away from him, still on the Canucks’ side, if barely. Joey scrambles up.

“Hey,” the guy says. “I’m really sorry about what happened to you. I just want you to know that none of the Canucks are going to use your sexuality against you, okay? Not tonight or ever.”

“Thanks,” Joey says cautiously. Like, that sounds nice, but it also sounds too nice. It’s one thing for Joey’s teammates to band together in support, it’s a whole other thing for opponents not to take advantage of prime chirping material, even if it’s technically not allowed. Technically meaning Joey’s heard a lot of homophobic shit on the ice in his time, and refs tend to pretend not to hear it so they don’t have to call it.

“You’re not alone in this league, you know?” the Canuck says.

“I mean, yeah,” Joey says.

“I mean,” the Canuck says, then kind of tilts his head like —

“Oh!” Joey says. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” the Canuck says. “So none of these guys are going to say anything, okay?”

“Thanks,” Joey says, more honestly this time, and Scratch appears over his shoulder as the guy skates deeper into the Canucks’ end.

“What’d he say?” Scratch says, straddling the line between hovering and lurking. “He give you shit?”

“No,” Joey says. “Just said sorry it happened and that the Canucks aren’t going to give me any shit tonight.”

“Really?” Scratch asks doubtfully, but his posture goes from ‘ready to commit murder’ to mostly neutral. “That’s nice.”

“Really,” Joey confirms. “It was.”

“Pretty sure he’s a Toronto boy,” Scratch says after a second. “Markson.”

Oh, here we go. More fodder for Scratch’s ‘Torontonians: best people alive’ monologue.

“You know the burbs don’t count,” Joey says. Which is hypocritical, perhaps, because that means his Chicago claims are B.S. too, but anything to stop Scratch’s agenda, and Scratch keeps cheating in his ‘Toronto boy’ shit by pulling in places that aren’t even close. If you have a different mayor, you don’t count.

Scratch squints at him.

Joey squints back.

“Where in T.O. are you from, Markson?” Scratch calls.

Markson skates over. “NT,” he says.

“Oh cool,” Scratch says, giving Joey a triumphant look. “The Danforth.”

“Greektown, right on,” Markson says.

Joey skates away, and Scratch, who hasn’t been off his heels since Joey’s agent broke the news, doesn’t even notice. Torontonian priorities, Joey guesses.

“What’re they talking about?” Willy asks.

“Torontonians being the best people alive, probably,” Joey says.

“Again?” Willy groans.

“I know,” Joey says.

“Hey Money,” Willy says, gives him a little elbow, this look like ‘you okay, buddy?’.

“I’m okay,” Joey says, and it isn’t true, but it’s more true than it was before Markson skated over.


	19. Stephen/Gabe, Jared; first impressions (pt 1)

Stephen’s paying attention on trade deadline day. Of course he is; it’s literally his job to. But it’s maybe not his job to dive into stats and replays and game write-ups about Jared Matheson as soon as his trade to Vancouver’s announced, because it takes about two seconds of reading for Stephen to know with some certainty he’s been brought to Vancouver to play on Gabe’s right side.

“You do love me,” Gabe says, when Stephen imparts his extensive research to him that night to try to cheer him up. He knows Sami was one of Gabe’s best friends on the team. Trying to distract himself a little too, because Sammy’s girlfriend Mila is smart and savagely funny and has a knack for bringing bottles of wine that win the taste tests and Stephen’s going to miss her.

“He sounds like he’ll be a good fit with you and Dmitry,” Stephen says.

“Fuck I hope so,” Gabe says. “I can’t deal with any more line shuffling this year.”

He seems a lot happier after his first practice with the new liney, practically whistling when Stephen comes home, giving off ‘ask me about my day so I can tell you about how good it was’ vibes Stephen can feel before he even gets his coat off.

“Went well, then?” Stephen asks.

“Went really well,” Gabe cheerfully confirms, following Stephen into the kitchen. “I think you’ll like him.”

“If I even get to meet him before he gets injured,” Stephen says.

“Stop talking about the non-existent curse,” Gabe says. “It makes me nervous.”

“Why would it make you nervous if it didn’t exist?” Stephen says.

“Hedging my bets,” Gabe says. “If the hockey gods do exist, we’ve clearly already done something to piss them off, better not make it worse.”

“You don’t believe in god but now you believe in the _hockey gods_?” Stephen asks.

“Hedging my bets!” Gabe says.

Stephen snorts.

*

Stephen’s in the middle of an expense report when he gets interrupted by the front door opening, multiple sets of shoes hitting the floor in the front hall. It’s possibly his least favourite part of the job, and something he tends to leave stuff out because it isn’t worth saving a receipt to expense a thirteen dollar meal three weeks later. Him and Gabe are literal millionaires, it is not his priority, but accounting always freaks out at him if he doesn’t, like he isn’t saving them money by leaving things out.

That and an impending four hour drive mean he’s not particularly impressed when he sees two heads peeking out from behind Gabe, one unfortunately very familiar, the other he’s only seen in pictures.

“Hey, you’re home,” Gabe says.

“Have to drive out to Kelowna for the game,” Stephen says. “So did a half-day.”

“Forgot about that,” Gabe says. “Stephen, Jared, my new liney.”

“Enjoying the cursed line?” Stephen asks Jared sweetly.

“So far no curse?” Jared says.

“Don’t talk about the curse,” Dmitry says, voice hushed, like they’ll wake it up if he talks about it any louder. “It makes it more powerful.”

Stephen thinks he knows where Gabe got his hedging his bets from. He rolls his eyes. “On that note, enjoy your curse,” he says, closing the laptop and standing up. “Nice to meet you, Jared.”

There are dishes in the sink, dishes that should not be in the sink, and Stephen puts down his laptop down on the counter with a little too much force before he transfers them to the dishwasher, yells at Gabe about the mess.

“Those are literally yours, Stephen,” Gabe yells back. “I loaded the dishwasher after dinner and I got breakfast on the way to practice.”

There’s ketchup on the edge of one of them, and Gabe hates ketchup with a strange amount of passion with the one specific exception of in his KD, so Gabe might be right. Stephen angrily rinses off the ketchup evidence.

Stephen’s always annoyed when people come into his space without an invitation, and Gabe’s mournful expression when he follows him into the kitchen reflects that he is well aware he’s in trouble.

“I forgot,” Gabe says.

“To do the dishes,” Stephen says.

“You know those are yours,” Gabe says. “Sorry I forgot.”

Stephen is committed to pretending they’re Gabe’s dishes now.

Gabe leans over him to grab plates from the cupboard — Stephen has been trying to get him to give up and just eat takeout from the box it’s in as man intended for a literal decade, but it’s a losing effort — presses a kiss to Stephen’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” he repeats.

“It’s fine,” Stephen says. “Don’t leave those plates in the sink when you’re done.”

“I won’t,” Gabe says, and sneaks one more kiss to the side of Stephen’s head before he retreats to the dining room and Stephen retreats to work in the office. Well, the room that has a desk that Gabe probably uses more than Stephen does, but it’s still ostensibly his office. 

He sorts through receipts, wonders if expensing a two dollar double-double is petty enough to get accounting off his back about expensing everything. He decides to do it, and thankfully by the time he’s done Gabe’s the only cursed hockey player in his house.


	20. Stephen/Gabe, Jared; first impressions (pt 2)

The game in Kelowna is the opposite of interesting from a pure entertainment perspective, but it’s actually the ideal game to watch to gauge Quinn Tuttle’s defensive play, or lack thereof. He cobbles together a report during intermissions, finishes it and sends as Prospera empties out, calls Gabe on his way back to the hotel so he can convince him not to drive home.

“Do not drive home,” Gabe dutifully tells him.

“I hate hotels,” Stephen says.

“I know you do,” Gabe says. “But you’re not driving an eight hour round trip in twelve hours.”

“I know,” Stephen sighs. He hates staying at hotels in general, and it doesn’t help that he’s been put up in a fucking _Best Western._

“Go to sleep early, you can be back in time for us to grab lunch?” Gabe says. “We’ll do that taco place that just opened up.”

“Okay,” Stephen says.

“If I wake up to find you in bed beside me I’m gonna be pissed at you,” Gabe says.

Like he wouldn’t wake up the second Stephen opened the door just to be pissed at him.

Stephen goes to bed early, is on the road by eight, has enough time to shower in his own shower — he hates hotel showers most of all — and still grab lunch with Gabe before Gabe has to head out to Rogers Arena and Stephen heads to work to get a half day in. He works better on the road, at the office, than he ever does at home, always gets distracted by the smallest things and then blinks and two hours have passed and he knows more about cuttlefish than any one person should know. 

He listens to the second half of the first period during the drive home — up by one. By the time he’s changed into sweats and a t-shirt and extracted the chips from their hiding place — they both agree the junk must stay hidden for Gabe’s own good, but he has to keep finding new spots because Gabe will sniff them out in moments of weakness — they’re still up by one, but two more goals have been scored, and when Stephen checks the boxscore, one of those is by Dmitry, with an assist from Gabe, a secondary assist from Jared, which is pretty good for their first game as a line.

Gabe’s probably staying out with the guys celebrating Jared’s first point as a Canuck — so Stephen gets ready for bed, is halfway through his one chapter a night of what is indeed a history of nearly everything, but is not brief — when Gabe gets home, clattering around in the kitchen for a minute before coming upstairs.

“You didn’t go out for drinks?” Stephen asks.

“Just stayed for my free one,” Gabe says. “See the goal?”

“Saw the goal,” Stephen confirms, because he’s sure seeing a replay of it in highlights counts. “Nice one. Jared’s pass to you was a beauty. Line’s clicking.”

“Line’s clicking,” Gabe says happily.

Stephen dog ears the corner of the page he’s on while Gabe’s back is turned — otherwise he’ll give Stephen a sad face and go hunting for a bookmark to give him — sits up and listens to Gabe do a post-game breakdown as he changes for bed.

“So what do you think of Jared?” he asks as he crawls into bed.

“He looked good out there,” Stephen says. “Comfortable.”

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “But like — not hockey. I know you only met him for a minute, but you’re very—”

Stephen looks at him.

“You have strong first impressions?” Gabe says, which Stephen suspects is Gabe trying to find a nice way to say ‘you’re judgy’.

Stephen’s not judgy, he’s just not interested in spending time with people who are not worth that time.

“He seemed fine?” Stephen says. “As long as he’s not another Dmitry I’ll probably like him.”

“You love Dima, don’t front,” Gabe says. “And nah, he’s more of a you.”

“Oh, do tell,” Stephen says, “What is a ‘me’?”

“He’s pretty quiet, but from what I’ve been able to tell he’s kind of snarky,” Gabe says. “Seems like the kind of guy who’s really good at finding where other people make mistakes. Like, to fix them, but also just to find them. Definitely get that vibe from him. And he’s smart as hell, I’ll tell him something once and he’ll know exactly what I’m asking for and do it.”

Well that was slightly unflattering, though Stephen knows Gabe doesn’t mean it that way. He’s been aware of all of Stephen’s faults since — forever, probably, and he’s still there, so mostly he’s just saying it matter-of-factly.

Still, Stephen can’t let that stand.

“I am none of those things,” Stephen says, then considers. “Except smart. I’m very smart.”

“You are,” Gabe says agreeably.

“But none of the other things,” Stephen insists.

“Okay,” Gabe says. “You also never do what I ask you to do, so admittedly it’s probably a little off.”

“Hey,” Stephen says. “That is completely unfair and untrue.”

“Did you pick up our suits from the dry cleaner on your way home?” Gabe asks.

He forgot. And Gabe asked him twice, and texted him before the game to make sure, so Gabe has won this round. Unless —

“Are you saying I didn’t?” Stephen says. They’re a twenty-four hour place, so maybe he can distract Gabe and —

“I know you didn’t,” Gabe says.

“You don’t,” Stephen counters. Maybe if he texts Dmitry from the bathroom and asks him to —

“I know you didn’t, because I picked up our stuff from the dry cleaner on my way home,” Gabe says.

Fuck. Entrapment. Stephen hadn’t considered entrapment. Gabe’s usually above entrapment.

“I got caught up listening to the first period,” Stephen says. It’s not a lie, technically.

“Uh huh,” Gabe says.

“Thank you for picking them up,” Stephen says, and picks up his book.

“You’re welcome,” Gabe says, leans over Stephen’s shoulder to see where he is. He’s already read it, so he periodically checks.

“Stephen,” Gabe says.

“Yes Gabriel,” Stephen says.

“Are you vandalizing my books again?” Gabe asks.

“Everything in this house belongs to both of us,” Stephen says, but he guiltily un-dog ears the page when Gabe gives him a disappointed look.


	21. Gabe/Stephen, Jared/Bryce; miscommunication

Gabe wakes up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed. He was up late talking to Stephen, nailing out the best way to approach Jared, but the thing is — Gabe’s not great at confrontation. Not that he’s going in expecting a confrontation, more that he’s exhausted just thinking of it becoming one. But he knows it’s going to affect the line if he doesn’t clear the air, let Jared know what the Canucks are about, what they won’t stand for. 

If he asked Dmitry or Frankie or even Brian to do it so it’s a straight dude telling another straight dude he’s out of line rather than ‘hey don’t do this it personally affects me’, they’d do it without batting an eyelash, but Gabe doesn’t think it’s fair to ask them, and on top of that, if Jared’s going to have a problem with Gabe’s personal life, Gabe needs to know that sooner rather than later.

But first, coffee. Always coffee first.

“You’re grumpy,” Dmitry observes, pointing a strawberry at him accusingly.

“Just tired,” Gabe says. 

Tired, and still going through the list of talking points — Stephen was very into making a list of talking points, figuring out the best time to do this. They agreed after practice was probably best, but Gabe really doesn’t want to spend practice distracted. Which makes it a good thing when Jared intercepts him on the way out of breakfast with a quiet, “Can I talk to you?”. He doubts Jared wants to talk about the same thing Gabe does, most likely it’s hockey related, but still.

“Sure,” Gabe says. “I wanted to talk to you too. About yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Jared says. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. Can we go somewhere, like—”

Gabe follows Jared to a corner table, faintly surprised. Generally the guys who say the kind of shit Jared did aren’t exactly interested in talking about it, will brush it off with a dismissive ‘it was a joke, chill’ if they’re called out on it. They definitely don’t bring it up themselves. Unless Jared’s talking about something else entirely — his play last night, maybe, which wasn’t great, but isn’t what Gabe has a problem with right now.

Jared stops at the table furthest from any of their teammates, even though there are dirty dishes on it, unlike a few others nearby. He stacks them like he’s trying to do something with his hands, though maybe it’s just that the mess bugs him.

“About yesterday,” Gabe tries, when Jared doesn’t seem interested in anything but cleaning up, won’t look at Gabe. The back of his neck’s gone red like he’s embarrassed. “I need you to know—”

“I can—” Jared interrupts. “I’m um. I’m married.”

“Okay,” Gabe says slowly. It’s something he had already figured, and Jared seems young for it, especially for a city kid — Gabe’s noticed the guys from small towns tend to marry younger — but he’s a private guy in general, hasn’t offered much of anything about himself, so Gabe thought he might take it as prying if Gabe asked. “I kind of figured, what with the ring and all. I just thought you were private about it.”

“I am, kinda,” Jared says. “It’s um. to a guy.”

He doesn’t look like he’s joking. Actually, he looks kind of white-faced yet somehow simultaneously blotchy pink, like it’s taking everything in him to say it.

“That’s,” Jared says, somehow even whiter and redder now. “I’ve got a husband.”

“Oh,” Gabe says. He’s starting to see Jared’s comments in a whole other light, and with that piece of context they seem more they were ‘I’m checking to see if you’re cool with gay people’ attempts gone very awry than ‘ew gay people’. “Okay, cool. Me too, basically.”

“Kay,” Jared mumbles, and now he looks more sick than nervous. “I’m gonna—”

It takes Gabe a second before he realises that he’s come across joking in the exact same way as Jared came off disgusted. What they have here, is a failure to communicate. Gabe doesn’t remember what that’s from, but man is it fitting right now. They’re going to have to work on that if they’re going to stay lineys.

“ _Dude_ ,” Gabe says, when Jared starts to get up. “I’m not kidding. You met Stephen. Like, for a minute, but you met him.”

“Your roommate?” Jared asks.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Gabe says.

Jared slowly sits back down. He looks curious instead of nervous, or nauseated, which Gabe considers an improvement. He thought he’d be a little better at someone coming out to him at this point, but apparently not. To be fair, it’s been awhile, and he thinks everyone who did already knew they were talking to someone who got it.

“I thought you said you were married, though,” Jared says.

“We haven’t had a wedding or anything, but we’ve been cohabiting for seven years, so the BC government says we don’t have to bother to put a ring on it to be considered spouses,” Gabe says. “Though our parents are kind of pissed that we’re not doing it anyway.”

“Who knows?” Jared asks.

“About me and Stephen?” Gabe asks.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“On the team?” Gabe says.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“Like, who I’ve personally told or who is ninety-nine percent sure but is too awkward to ask?” Gabe asks. 

He can count on one hand the guys he had an actual proper coming out with — or caught him drunkenly making out with Stephen in Dima’s case — but those guys know Gabe’s cool with the team knowing, so he thinks they often break it themselves so Gabe doesn’t have to do it. Honestly he’s surprised no one had told Jared by this point.

“Uh,” Jared says. “Either? Both?”

“Dmitry, all of the vets know for sure,” Gabe says. “Pretty much everyone who’s been here since before this season. I think the entire roster has figured out he’s my boyfriend. We’re not shouting it from the rooftops or anything, because the media—”

That is the opposite of what either of them want to deal with, especially because it would probably lead to snide, untrue speculation about Stephen only having his job because his boyfriend’s an NHLer.

“— but we’re not hiding it from the team.”

“And they don’t _mind_?” Jared asks, sounding completely incredulous. Gabe feels for him. He was lucky enough at Jared’s age to know he wasn’t alone in the league, but he knows that’s far from a universal experience.

“Nah,” Gabe says. “And if they did their wives and girlfriends would have something to say about it, Stephen’s one-hundred percent been adopted by them. He hosts wine parties for them at our place when I’m on the road, it’s bullshit.”

He could at least save some of the leftover wine for Gabe, but nope, he sends home all the unfinished bottles with the girls and always snidely tells Gabe he doesn’t have mature enough tastebuds to appreciate them anyway. And to be fair, wine is mostly wine to Gabe, but still: the least he should get for his house being used for wine tastings is some free wine out of the deal.

“I don’t think they’d be adopting my husband any time soon,” Jared says.

“Stephen’s like the grumpiest person alive sometimes, if they adopted him I’m sure your husband will be part of the crew in a day,” Gabe says.

“I kind of doubt it?” Jared says.

“He can’t be that bad,” Gabe says.

“No, he’s great,” Jared says quickly. “It’s just — anyway, it doesn’t matter, he’s back in Alberta.”

He sounds glum about it, and Gabe can’t blame him. He starts getting faintly anxious whenever a roadie’s longer than a week, he genuinely can’t imagine spending months away from Stephen.

“Cool, maybe I can meet him next time we’re out there?” Gabe asks.

“Maybe,” Jared says. “Could I — could I tell my husband I have a gay teammate? Like, I don’t have to tell him who it is or anything, I think he’d just — I think he’d feel better knowing that?”

“I’m bi,” Gabe says. “But yeah. You can say it’s me too, I don’t mind — he’s not going to go running to reporters about it, I’m sure.”

“No,” Jared says. “Definitely not.”

“Then I don’t mind,” Gabe says.

“Okay,” Jared says. He’s full on beaming at Gabe right now. Gabe hasn’t seen many smiles from him — understandable, in hindsight, if he had to leave his husband behind when he got traded. He’s got a really nice one, though. It makes him look younger, or, Gabe guesses, it makes him actually look his age, reminds Gabe he’s still a kid who just got separated from everything he was used to, up to and including his husband. “Okay.”

“Is it cool if I tell Stephen?” Gabe asks. “About like—”

“Yeah, as long as he’s like—” Jared says.

“He won’t say shit,” Gabe says.

“Then, yeah, cool,” Jared says.

“He’s going to want you to come over for dinner when we get back home,” Gabe says. More accurately Gabe wants Jared to come over for dinner — the kid needs roots here — but Stephen will too. “Just warning you in advance. He already likes you.”

Well, he did up until yesterday, but ‘not a homophobe, just on a fishing expedition’ will land him right back into Stephen’s good graces.

“I told him you guys have the same sense of humour and view of the world and stuff,” Gabe says, because Jared looks confused.

Jared frowns. “Like — snide? And — cynical? Or—”

Well, unlike Stephen apparently Jared is actually capable of admitting that, which is nice.

“Yeah, he’s going to love you,” Gabe says.

“I’ve gotta—” Jared says, visibly fidgeting in his seat, and Gabe doesn’t think it’s discomfort, at least at the conversation. Gabe gets it: the first instinct he has when he has good news, or bad news, or a funny story, or even a particularly awful dad joke that’ll get him a groan, is tell Stephen.

“Tell your husband?” Gabe guesses.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“Go on, I’ll see you at practice,” Gabe says, and can’t help laughing as Jared practically sprints out of the room. He follows him a little more leisurely, quickly does the timezone math on whether Stephen will be awake yet — yes, but he’s probably in the shower right now — and texts Stephen to give him a call after he’s had his morning coffee.


	22. Stephen/Gabe, Canucks; without a hitch

Stephen doesn’t really remember how they got him to agree to this. It was Ksenia and Alyssa teaming up, he thinks, but things were a little blurry at that point of the night thanks to Oksana. No night with Oksana is safe, and Ksenia and Alyssa were clearly sober enough to take advantage of his fragility. Actually, he doesn’t think they were any more sober than he was, in hindsight. Alyssa’s wheedling sounded more like her five year old son than the grown ass woman she pretends to be.

It makes sense for it to be at their place, though. Most of the younger players have opted for apartments, and the ones with houses are typically living out in the suburbs, which is a bit of a hike out considering he doubts any of them will be good to drive after. They plan it for the middle of the Canucks’ California trip, and Gabe gets far too offended about it being held in his absence considering he gets to lie in the sun by a pool all day.

“I’m here to play hockey,” Gabe says. “You know, work.”

“Are you currently lying beside the pool?” Stephen says. He knows he is: Dmitry sent him a picture of Gabe reading a book in a lounge chair ten minutes ago.

“But I’m also here for work,” Gabe protests.

“This is work too,” Stephen says.

“How is it work,” Gabe says.

“I have to order food platters,” Stephen says. “And clean so Ksenia doesn’t make passive aggressive comments about our house. That’s work.”

“That’s party planning,” Gabe says.

“Which is a _career_ , Gabriel,” Stephen says.

It doesn’t feel like work though, once he’s getting things ready, ordering food platters, even the cleaning. He’s always meant to get a little more serious about wine, know some more of the intricacies than simply preferring one type over another, and this seems like a good chance. He spends a ridiculous amount of time researching the best bottles to opt for, ends up buying half a dozen that come well recommended, because he can’t decide, and if this goes well he’s sure there will be another time. He arranges the food in the most optimal manner, puts a bottle on the sideboard, and can’t help but feel excited about it.

And then Alyssa arrives with Sarah twenty minutes before everything’s set to start, and everything starts to go wrong.

“For you,” Alyssa says, handing him a wine glass with _bitches be sippin’_ on it.

“Oh no,” Stephen says. “We are not doing this. This is not us.”

“This is absolutely us,” Alyssa says.

“This is going to be a muted, elegant affair,” Stephen says.

Alyssa laughs in his face, and, it turns out, that’s the right answer. It starts out fine, Alyssa and Sarah helping him finish setting up, opening a few bottles to breathe. Erika, seven months pregnant, arrives with a very nice bottle of wine Stephen had seen on one of the lists. Things seem to be going well.

“I can’t drink, obviously,” Erika says. “But I can eat all of your food.”

“You can eat some of my food,” Stephen agrees.

Erika looks critically at the dining room table. “You might need to order a pizza or something.”

There has to be two hundred dollars worth of food on that table.

“Anyone want Romano’s?” Erika asks, already on her phone.

“Oh come on,” Stephen says. “Romano’s isn’t even good.”

Well, it’s good at two in the morning, but Stephen suspects all pizza’s good when you’re drunk at two in the morning.

“I will fight you, Stephen,” Erika says.

Stephen’s saved from the prospect of fighting a heavily pregnant woman — there’s no way to win that fight — by the door, Oksana walking in four inch heels, a dress more suited for clubbing than wine tasting, and carrying a litre of vodka.

“Oksana,” Stephen sighs. “It’s a wine tasting.”

“You know me and love me,” Oksana says with a dismissive wave and goes to bring her vodka to the kitchen. “Where is ice? Do you have soda?”

“You know where the ice is, and no,” Stephen says. “Because this is a wine tasting.”

“I can order you soda water from Romano’s,” Erika says without looking up from her phone.

“Thank you,” Oksana says. “Where is ice, Stephen?”

“You know where it is!” Stephen says, but goes to grab her ice from the freezer, which he suspects is what she wanted all along.

“You going clubbing after?” he asks critically.

“How often do I go out?” she asks him flatly. “Two little ones.”

“Wait, _are_ you going clubbing?” Stephen says.

“No,” she says. “Dress for the party you want to go to.”

“This is not that party,” Stephen tells her firmly.

No one seems to agree with him. By the time Stephen’s greeted the stragglers, pretty much every bottle of wine has been opened, and the sipping going on is of the drinking variety, not the tasting variety.

“It’s supposed to be a wine tasting,” Stephen says helplessly.

“Sit down and pour yourself a glass and stop pretending this is a wine tasting,” Alyssa says. “This is wine drinking.”

Stephen pours himself a glass and vows to make rules for next time. He wants to taste wine. Multiple types of wine. And judge the wine.

But not this wine. This wine is disgusting.

“Who brought this,” Stephen says. “It’s terrible.”

“With notes of cherry,” Erika says, reading the back of the label. “Does it taste like cherry?”

“It tastes like shit,” Stephen says.

“Snob,” Alyssa says, taking the wine glass out of his hand and sipping. Stephen waits for the nose wrinkle that has to follow.

“It tastes fine,” she declares.

No one has any taste in this house but Stephen. He goes to retrieve the well-recommended bottle of wine from the side-board, pours himself a glass and keeps it close, because no one else deserves it.

It’s nice, this wine. So there’s that.

It’s three in the morning when the last of the guests leave. Stephen looks at his decimated food platters — they were all too good his food right up until the pizza ran out — the empty bottles of wine stacked on the kitchen counter by whoever was sober enough and thoughtful enough to do it for him. He should probably clean it up tonight, but, well — he’s way too drunk to clean it up tonight. Bed.

Stephen wakes up with a splitting headache and many regrets. Even more regrets when he staggers down to the kitchen for water and sees the mess he has left to clean. Gabe calls him when he’s halfway through, and Stephen sighs before he picks it up.

“How’d last night go?” Gabe asks.

Stephen knows, without a doubt, that Oksana is going to tell Dmitry about Stephen’s absolute failure of a wine tasting, and that Dmitry will tell Gabe, but even so, he can’t stop himself from saying, “Terrific. Went off without a hitch. Tasted a lot of wine.”

He can, in fact, _still_ taste the wine, even though he brushed his teeth.

“Good,” Gabe says. “Glad you guys had fun.”

“So much,” Stephen says, and when he gets off the phone with Gabe he opens his notes app to start making rules for next time, starting with ‘actually bring wine OKSANA’.


	23. Dave, Andreas, David/Jake; putting in an appearance

Every time there’s a media event that David and Jake are both invited to, Dave finds himself crushing antacids for days beforehand, just waiting for things to blow up. How, he doesn’t know, but there’s no shortage of options, opportunities, all laid out in Andreas’ exhaustive and frankly terrifying Contingency Plan folder. Well, specifically the subfolders for David and Jake, because they aren’t the only contigencies Dave has to deal with. Marcus has a hell of a subfolder himself.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust David’s discretion — he trusts it implicitly, and he trusts, up to a point, that David’s clear preference in maintaining privacy means Jake’s discretion can be assured. But Jake’s an honest, heart on his sleeve, emotional person, and Dave always worries that in the heat of the moment he might let something he doesn’t mean to slip, give David a look he doesn’t mean to give him, or does, but one that isn’t appropriate for the time and place, drop an endearment in, give something away with his body language, anything.

Dave’s only consolation is that people are stupid. He finds that underestimating people is dangerous, so he never does, but frankly, most people? Dumb as bricks, and too self-centered to pick up on anything around them that wouldn’t personally hurt or profit them. 

The problem with the media, unfortunately, is that anything Jake would do would personally profit them — that’d be one hell of a story to break — but after a spate of trash that pretended to be articles but were more like libel, speculating about everybody and anybody after Riley and Lapointe came out, the assumption tends to be that hockey’s a straight as hell sport, and that they were just novel exceptions. Even other players coming out — or getting outed, Dave has to remember to buy Brett drink or seven the next time he sees him for dealing with that shitshow — seem to be pointed at as the exceptions that prove the rule.

Which on the one hand, is a mess, but on the other hand, it makes Dave’s job a lot easier. Without any irrefutable evidence — and Dave knows David’s not even close to stupid enough to leave any evidence like that — probably the only way the two of them get found out is if they want to. And Dave knows that’s not the case.

Which, again, is a comfort, but it doesn’t do anything for his acid reflux. At this rate he’s going to be more bile than man.

“You already are,” Andreas says.

“You’re fired,” Dave says.

“You already fired me last week,” Andreas says.

“Why the hell are you still here, then?” Dave asks.

“Because you’d be lost without me,” Andreas says, which is true enough.

It’s not that Dave’s going to media day specifically to babysit them. He’s got other reasons. For one, it conveniently always happens to be in the city he lives in — what a coincidence — Marcus got tapped for the Flames and Dave should probably be close by in case he decides today’s the day to blurt out he’s married to all and sundry — no wonder Dave’s stomach always hurts — and he has a fourth overall client who got picked up by the Rangers, is about to be thrown into shark infested waters, and is so shy and soft spoken he cringes when someone talks a little loud. If anyone’s getting babysat, it’s him. Not that Dave’s worried about a scandal there, just that he might faint away or decide after that horror show it might be better to pack up and move to the Yukon or something.

Andreas is handling him — he seems more comfortable with Andreas, which makes sense, since Dave is one of those loud talkers that scares the kid. Dave genuinely has no clue how a guy who can throw massive hits between threading the needle can’t talk louder than a whisper, but that’s just one of life’s great mysteries. No shortage of them.

It’s a long day. It’s always a long day when the media’s involved. Andreas thankfully coaxes Cox to pipe up with multiple sound-bytes for his new market, and while they’re as rote as they come — happy to be here, excited to be part of a team with a legacy, etc, etc — that’s more than enough for right now. Nobody’s really asking players to show personality: hell, they tend to leap down the throats if players do.

Jake’s doing his very low-key display of a personality all day, all effortless affable charm, and David’s doing — well, David. Dave notices they stay way the hell clear of one another the entire time, which probably isn’t necessary, and was probably more difficult than they’d have liked, considering the media seems like they’re never going to get over that rivalry, even though David’s no longer with the Isles and neither of them have given any fuel to it for years, seem perfectly cordial, if not particularly warm — good ol’ David.

Dave finds his way over to David after he gives Cox a pat on the back for his performance — he swears Cox flinches when he does, he’s definitely going to leave him to Andreas’ gentler touch. He looks tired, drained, though Dave doesn’t think most people would notice.

“Media sucks,” Dave tells him.

“They’re fine,” David says in his best monotone, and does not flinch when Dave shakes him by the shoulder, which Dave appreciates. “Part of the job.”

“Annoying part of the job,” Dave agrees. “When’re you flying to Washington?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” David says.

“Wanna do brunch?” Dave asks.

David hesitates, just blink and you’d miss it, enough that Dave suspects he’s got other plans.

“We’ll do lunch next time you’re in town,” Dave says.

“We’ve got an exhibition game here,” David volunteers helpfully.

“Good,” Dave says.

Jake comes loping over, all mock-casual. Dave is almost one-hundred percent sure the two of them are going to be spending the rest of their time in New York attached at the hip, but he still can’t help himself from gravitating to wherever David is.

“Dave,” Jake says cheerfully. “Chaps.”

Can’t help himself at all. David gives Jake a look that’s as exasperated as it is fond, and Dave empathizes, though he’s mostly just exasperation.

“At least use separate exits,” Dave mutters at Jake, and Jake just gives him a completely unrepentant grin in return.


	24. Gabe/Stephen, Jared/Bryce, Poor Chaz; simple deduction

Gabe has dinner plans in Calgary, and a lot of suspicions about them, because from the way Jared invited him last week, trying to sound casual but falling well short, Gabe figured it wasn’t just going to be some chill thing with hockey acquaintances, but something a little more important. And considering Jared’s told him that his husband’s back in Alberta, Gabe can warrant a guess as to what that would be. He won’t make assumptions though. It totally could be just a chill dinner and Jared was just being awkward about inviting him.

Jared is practically vibrating with tension when they head out to the restaurant, so Gabe’s changed his mind: he’s making assumptions.

There’s a good looking young guy at the table when they arrive, and Gabe stands back, watches them give each other the sort of hug Gabe exchanges every time he sees an old liney which is, apparently, exactly what they are, by Jared’s introduction. Gabe’s not getting any other vibes from them, though maybe Jared’s a better actor than Gabe anticipated.

Jared is not a better actor, because practically the second Bryce Marcus joins the table half an hour late, Gabe knows with perfect certainty that this is who Jared wanted Gabe to meet, and that’s just from how stilted their introductions are, the sort of attempted casual over awkward you get with an ex, except that’s emphatically the opposite of the vibe Gabe gets, even before he notices the ring on Bryce’s left hand.

It’s not hard to put things together; Jared said his husband was in Alberta, Jared has implied a few times that he was a hockey player, in a way Gabe doesn’t think he even noticed he was doing, Jared lives with his mother-in-law in Richmond right now, and Bryce Marcus being from Richmond comes up every single time the Flames come to town, especially since he’s one of those players who plays harder when he’s in his hometown. Nothing that Gabe had put together before, partly because he didn’t want to speculate on anything Jared wasn’t comfortable telling him himself, and unlike Stephen he’s not nosy as fuck — but now that it’s all assembled, that they’re all assembled, he’d be an idiot not to see it.

And that’s totally ignoring the fact that Jared and Bryce spend the entirety of their meals alternately stubbornly avoiding each other’s eyes or looking at one another like they haven’t seen one another in years. Gabe half wants to offer to move seats just so they can hold hands under the table or something, because they clearly want to.

Gabe accidentally catches Chaz’s eye, and Chaz gives him the most longsuffering expression in the entire world, ‘I can’t believe I’m here right now’ wafting off him from every pore, before he seems to realise what he’s doing and looks away, flustered, says him and Bryce have to meet up with someone not long after that, which may or may not be true — good plans have exit strategies.

Jared gives their retreating backs a transparently longing look when they pay their bill and head out, and then a transparently annoyed glance at Gabe’s half-full beer before he says, “So,” then after a long pause “Chaz. Known him for years.”

“Yeah, some of those Juniors friendships last forever, eh?” Gabe asks.

“Yeah,” Jared says, clearly struggling now. He looks like he’s torn between wanting to confirm that Gabe hasn’t noticed but also wanting Gabe to tell him he noticed, and Gabe thinks if he ever called Jared adorable to his face he’d get snapped at, but that is exactly what he is right now, skin blotchy pink and betraying the attempted casual mumble of his words. Gabe has the urge to pat him on the head, but he knows from experience with all three Petersen siblings that’s how you start a very dramatic sulk.

“They seemed like cool guys,” Gabe says. “You know you can just tell me you’re married, though.”

“I did?” Jared says.

“I mean to Bryce,” Gabe says, and he swears he can see the blood drain from Jared’s face, so maybe he didn’t want Gabe to know after all. In which case he’s either sorely underestimated Gabe’s intelligence or sorely overestimated his and Bryce’s acting abilities, which are nonexistent.

“I—” Jared says, stuttering over it a little. “Why do you think that?”

Gabe lays out his evidence, which is pretty incontrovertible, and Jared’s retorts get weaker and weaker, this hopelessly caught look on his face as Gabe lines it up: the rings, the mother-in-law, the fact that they always looked like they were two seconds away from leaping over the table into one another’s arms.

“Um,” Jared says, and Gabe can practically see him trying and failing to make up some logical excuse.

“Dude, go home to your husband, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Gabe says.

“Okay,” Jared says, clearly giving up on the ‘feeble denial’ portion of the conversation. “I don’t need to tell you this is like—”

“Not going to tell anyone,” Gabe assures him, because yeah, it’s one thing to be married to a guy, and it’s a whole other thing to be married to not just a divisional rival, but the star player. Gabe bets the story of how they met is a great one. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Thank you,” Jared says. “I — thanks. Not even Stephen?”

“I won’t tell Stephen unless you explicitly say I can tell Stephen,” Gabe says. “And that goes for anything you tell me in confidence, just for the record.”

“Okay,” Jared says. “I gotta — I’d have to ask Bryce about that.”

“Totally get that,” Gabe says. “I’ve uh. I’ve heard some stuff about him—”

“Before you say anything,” Jared says, bristling, before Gabe can assure him that he doesn’t let anything in the media affect his view of other players, having seen it twist and turn on guys he knows personally aren’t the way they’ve been depicted. “He was like — all of that was before we got together. And he was young and — the shit the media says about him—”

Or Jared could just say it for him, Gabe guesses. “I didn’t mean it accusingly. You know your relationship better than anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Jared says, visibly fidgeting in his seat like he’s just regressed fifteen years. “I um — do you want me to pay up front, or I could owe you or—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gabe says.

“Thanks,” Jared says, standing up, like it’s all he can do not to start backing away from Gabe one step at a time right now. Gabe gets it. Awkward conversation in the first place, and it’s probably been months since he saw Bryce.

But Gabe can’t resist saying one more thing, just because it’s too hard not to.

“Hey Jared?” Gabe asks.

“Yeah?” Jared says.

“ _Nice_ ,” Gabe says. He’ll admit it’s partly to mess with him — Stephen’s corrupted him — but also Gabe has eyes in his head.

Gabe doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone go as red as Jared goes.

“I know, right?” Jared says after gaping at Gabe for a full ten seconds. He’s trying to sound unaffected, and it’d almost work if he wasn’t the colour of a beet.

“Go home,” Gabe says, taking pity on his blushing face.

“Yeah,” Jared says. “I’m gonna—”

When he’s leaving the restaurant he looks like he hasn’t decided whether he wants to try to play it cool or like, sprint, so he’s going for speed-walking like a snowbird in Florida on a grimly determined constitutional, and Gabe grins at his retreating back, texts Dima to ask if he wants to watch a movie or something — clearly Jared’s got other plans.


	25. Morgan/Theo; silent treatment

Morgan’s acting weird.

At first Theo doesn’t notice, mostly because Morgan’s not around him much, and Theo’s frankly just grateful that’s the case. Maybe he’s worried Theo would snitch to mom and dad. They’re all welcoming to the billets and stuff, but Theo knows that if the chips were down and any of the billets were shitty to Theo, they’d take Theo’s side.

But Theo also knows they’d probably say it was all a big misunderstanding and try to sit them all down to work it in a family meeting, the way they always do, which is Theo’s personal version of hell, and would be even worse this time around. Morgan’s not family. Morgan’s not even family adjacent like Kai and Grigory are. Theo doesn’t want to talk to Morgan, and Morgan doesn’t want to talk to him, and that’s fine, that works perfectly for Theo.

And even if Morgan’s a bully who thinks Theo being gay is something to mock him about, well, Theo’s not a snitch, and he’s dealt with worse in high school. And it sucks that he’s coming home to it now soon, but then, just like Theo knows he’s going to graduate high school and never have to talk to most of those people again, he knows Morgan isn’t going to be living with them past his rookie year, so Theo can wait it out. 

It helps too that the Wild are on the road a lot for the next month, only have a few home games. Doesn’t help mom, and Theo feels bad for her, always stuck juggling when dad’s away, but it’s not as bad now that everyone but Frederick can pretty much take care of themselves, and Frederick’s the only one who gets upset when dad’s off on the road again. Well, mom too, Morgan guesses. Theo’s mostly just glad he’s taking Morgan with him.

It’s not peaceful with Morgan gone, not quiet either — the only time Theo gets peace and quiet is when he stays up late enough that everyone else is asleep, and even then it’s a fifty-fifty chance he’s going to run into someone in the kitchen if he goes down for a snack or a glass of water. Mom makes him do way more too, because Morgan isn’t sucking up and offering to be at her beck and call, Matt’s useless, Alex will always find an excuse, Emma will try to multitask whatever chore and reading a book and get neither done, and Frederick will just make everything worse. He can’t even pick up his own toys after himself without pulling out more of them. So it’s Theo stuck on dishwasher duty, Theo unpacking the groceries, Theo mom asks to go on ‘just a little errand’ and then gives him a list with half a dozen things on it, Theo doing his own laundry even though mom does everyone else’s. Which — whatever. It’s fine. At least he doesn’t have to deal with Morgan on top of everything else.

The trip goes by too quickly, in Theo’s opinion, though he swears mom is counting the hours until her breath over breakfast their final Morgan free day after Matt throws a full teenage hissy fit because she asked him to clear the table and Alexia is blaring some shrill youtube ‘star’ without her headphones on, eyes on her phone as she nibbles at the one dry piece of toast she’s been having for breakfast for months now, and Frederick finishes his cereal with more on the table than in his stomach.

“I’ll clear the table,” Theo offers, and she gives him a smile like he just offered like — a million bucks. Not that she needs a million bucks. They have way more than a million bucks. Definitely enough to hire a cleaner, but mom always insists it’d make her feel ‘snobby’, so instead they live in perpetual messiness. To be fair, they’d probably need a whole team of cleaners just to keep up with Fred. Theo’s probably the neatest person in this house and all that means is that he sometimes cleans up after himself without being asked first. Not even often, just sometimes. Grigory had a hard time adjusting, Theo remembers. Apparently his family had an actual house cleaner. Who was there like, every day. Must be nice.

Mom’s definitely counting the hours that night, and not even under her breath. Theo’s probably the only one of them not actively getting on her last nerve, and that’s because he’s in his room the whole time, even eats up there, because he’s got an essay due tomorrow morning he put off until the last minute. It’s not like it’s hard — he gives them his last minute barely edited essays and he still gets As for them, but it does actually take time. More time than he’d like, because his thesis seems to twist on him in the middle of the essay, so by the end of it he’s making a completely different argument than he was in the beginning and he’s got to fiddle with his sources to make them fit.

He’s finally finished and catching up on all the messages in the groupchat he had to ignore when he hears the front door open, mom practically running downstairs to like, dramatically throw herself in dad’s arms probably at this point, or alternately point an accusing finger at him for leaving her alone with four monsters and a model eldest son.

Usually he’d go down, say hi, possibly even let his dad give him one of those too firm hugs he does when he’s been on the road for awhile, because he knows his dad hates the long road trips, but then he can hear the mumble of Morgan’s voice, too low to catch what he’s saying, and he doesn’t move except to put his headphones in.

He hears the knock that comes a few minutes later over the music, grunts acknowledgment because he assumes it’s his dad, which it is.

“Late, bud,” dad says.

“Had to finish an essay,” Theo says.

“It was due tomorrow?” his dad asks, like he already knows the answer, and Theo shrugs.

“I’m closing the light,” dad says.

“Okay,” Theo says. “Welcome home.”

Dad hovers in the doorway for a moment before he hits the light, and Theo feels vaguely guilty now that he didn’t let him do the whole ‘welcome back’ hug, but — whatever, that’s Morgan’s fault.


	26. Various Caps; brittle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is AU in that the Caps never hit the 5OT point that lead to this prompt (it is a rare as hell occurrence) but if they did this is how it would go.

Some games you just get outplayed in every single facet. It doesn’t matter that you’re the better team, it doesn’t matter if you’ve won eight of the last ten match-ups against them, or are on a ten game win streak, or your power play’s hot and their PK sucks. Some games you just deserve to lose.

Except apparently not if Devon Crane has a single fucking thing to say about it.

*

David tries to think if he’s ever been this tired in his life. He can’t come up with any examples. He think he might be too tired to. Too tired to think at all, which is a strange little mercy because he knows if he had any more energy he’d be thinking about all the ways they don’t deserve to win this game, all the ways it could go wrong, the ways he could personally be at fault if this goes wrong.

He glances over at Crane, who could be carved from wood he’s so still, and finds strength in it. Takes a sip of water, another, his body as rebellious as it is grateful, sips it very slowly, and that kills the rest of the time until they have to take the ice again.

“David,” Oleg says before they take the ice, tips his head down, and David knocks his visor against Oleg’s in agreement.

*

There isn’t anything behind Devon’s eyes. Elliott thinks he could wave a hand in front of his face and Devon would track the movement like he’d track a puck, but if Elliott asked how he was doing the question would go in one ear and out the other. He’s dialled in, and usually he dials out just a little during intermissions, just enough to say a bit, drink some water, listen to any speeches, then dials himself right back in when the countdown to take the ice starts. Elliott’s faintly concerned he won’t know how to at the end of the night at this rate. If there is an end of the night. They might still be playing when the sun rises, if any of them are still capable of playing by that point.

It’s not that Elliott has much left to say at this point, is just saying the same thing over and over — one lucky bounce and they have this, one tip, one odd-man rush, one deflection and they’re taking a stranglehold in the series. They all knows this. They knew this after the first, and after the second, and after the third, and — Elliott’s tired of his own voice, honestly, but he says it anyway, because otherwise they’re just going to sit in exhausted silence watching the time count down before they have to get to their wobbly legs and get back out on the ice.

He circles the room on his own wobbly legs, because he’s a concerned if he sits down he’s not going to be able to get back up again. He’s played about two games of ice time now, but he’s probably blocked more shots than he would in five, taken every single shot he can, though it never feels like enough. He knows he’s not the worst of it, though.

“Okay?” Elliott asks Robbie when he reaches him in his wobbly circle.

Robbie, who’s been on the ice half the game, probably blocked more shots than every forward combined, somehow isn’t too tired to give him the most sarcastic expression in the world.

“Okay,” Elliott nods, and after a second Robbie nods back.

*

Someone has to win, and someone has to lose, and the Caps don’t win it. It’d almost be better if it had been a greasy goal, something anticlimactic, just shovelling it in past exhausted defenders, but it’s a showstopper, highlight reel even if hadn’t been the goal to break a deadlock that seemed like it’d go on until morning at least. Crane didn’t have a single, solitary chance.

Sean has a wealth of material for his byline, has been writing things up during every intermission so it’ll be ready to send by a deadline that’s much closer than it should ever be, and all he needs to add at this point is a paragraph, maybe a single sentence, before he goes into the scrum to get soundbites from an exhausted, heartbroken team.

He gives himself around thirty seconds to feel bitterly, bitterly disappointed, a little heartbroken himself, and then he gets right back to work.


	27. Scratch, Money; treat yourself

Nick wakes up feeling shitty. The beer will do that, as will —

Nick wakes up feeling shitty. Beer alone will do that. Doesn’t really mean anything. He was already in a weird fucking mood last night, he probably didn’t need to add a hangover to the general crap. He’s got a text from Joey from bright and early — he doesn’t know how the hell he does it — with _What the hell were you doing up?_ , all judgy. 

Deservedly judgy, Nick guesses, because the text he sent Joey was at almost four in the morning. Who the hell leaves a bar after the first round only to stay up half the night? People making shitty decisions. Not that Nick is like. He doesn’t know. 

He takes a shower, which makes him feel a bit better, though not much, gets dressed, sits on his couch for about two minutes before he feels antsy, already way too in his head. He doesn’t want to be in it right now. That doesn’t explain why he’s hitting the stairwell, not even bothering to wait for the elevator, which is usually pretty quick, finding the key for Joey’s place by touch, because Joey put a dumb little fob thing on it.

Joey’s sitting on the couch in the big fluffy robe Casey got him beside a teapot, and Nick doesn’t even need to hear a word of dialogue before he knows it’s Parks and Rec he’s got on.

“You’re such a fucking loser,” Nick says, winces at how fondly it comes out, hoping Joey doesn’t notice. “Tea? Did you do those little sandwiches too? The ones cut into little corners?”

“Toast,” Joey says. “With jam.”

Nick bets they were cut into little corners. And jam’s really leaning into the self-care, so apparently last night didn’t go well. He should feel bad instead of whatever complicated thing he’s got going on right now.

“Oh, with _jam_ ,” Nick says. “Jesus, how bad was last night?”

“You’d know if you’d stuck around,” Joey says, a little sulky about it. “They told him about the fountain.”

The fountain was not Joey’s best moment. Not Nick’s either, to be fair.

“Are you going to lurk, or what?” Joey asks, and Nick honestly shouldn’t even be there, but he sits down anyway.

It’s Parks and Rec, of course. The pit episode, which Nick loves. Joey’s got good taste in TV, if not treats. Toast with jam. Weak. The robe’s comfortable though. Nick doesn’t own one, but maybe he should. “Am I too dressed up? Do I need to get a robe?”

“I’ve got—” Joey says, perking up a bit.

“Yeah yeah,” Nick says, and goes to Joey’s room, finds the ratty old one he’s had for at least ten years. He feels weird when he’s putting it on, and not just because it’s way too small for him. Like, Joey basically told him to, but at the same time, it feels like something he shouldn’t be doing. He doesn’t know. Today’s weird. Maybe he just needs to accept that today’s going to be weird.

Joey starts the episode back up when Nick sits down, and they watch in mostly comfortable silence, but when the credits start rolling Joey says, “Why’d you bail last night?” Nick knew he wouldn’t leave it alone.

“Wasn’t feeling it, I told you,” Nick says, which isn’t a lie or anything. “You want more tea?”

“Yeah, if you’re making it,” Joey says.

“Is it a honey day?” Nick asks. “Wait, why am I even asking that, they told him about the fountain.”

“Two spoonfuls!” Joey says as Nick brings the teapot to the kitchen. They must not have stopped at the fountain, then, though Nick doesn’t really want to ask, maybe get a ‘oh now he’ll never like me’ rant or ‘but Owen was looking _radiant_ all night’ or he doesn’t even know what. He’ll ask Trigger, maybe. He wonders if the time they almost burned a hotel down came up. It probably did. The team has collectively never forgiven them for that very cold wait for the fire trucks to come.

He looks through the treat cupboard while he waits for the kettle to boil, finds a box of chocolate chip cookies that have been his favourite since he was a kid. Joey must have picked them up when they were in Alberta, because you can’t get them outside of Canada.

Nick gets a plate, puts two on it, then after a moment, adds a third. If it’s a two honey day for Joey, Nick can have three cookies that Joey smuggled across country lines.

He’s got a bit of — something, working through him right now, but it’s not something he should be dealing with in the middle of Joey’s kitchen while he waits for water to boil, so he shoves a cookie in his mouth, shoves the feeling down, and gets the honey out of Joey’s ‘treat cupboard’, which contains zero actual treats.

Joey makes a happy sound when Nick returns, and Nick knows it’s for the tea, but —

He shoves it down with another cookie.


	28. Dave, Andreas, Greg (Jared/Bryce); no incidents

Dave has a fucking headache. It’s lodged between his eyes, pounding, and he figures it’s psychosomatic, his body rebelling against the stress of the day, or maybe it isn’t, a tension one, him clenching his jaw too much, sleeping too shit, too few hours, apparently waking Katrina up every night with the way he keeps changing position, will start out on the edge and crowd her to the edge herself by morning. Doesn’t matter the reason: his head hurts.

And that’s before Andreas appears in his doorway, hovering in a very specific way, his posture radiating ‘I don’t want to disturb you but it is imperative that I disturb you’.

“Which of our guys?” Dave says. Whichever team did it without contacting him first is officially on his shit-list, but he knows sometimes things go from ‘tentative discussion’ to ‘okay we’re pulling the trigger on this’ in the space of a minute on deadline days.

“Matheson,” Andreas says. “Greg wants you to call him.”

“Matheson isn’t one of our guys,” Dave says, but his heart sinks anyway. Leave it to Marcus to throw a wrench in his day when he isn’t even the one being traded. “Where?”

“Boston,” Andreas says.

“Fuck,” Dave says. “Okay, let Greg know I’ll give him a call.”

First he gets more coffee, swallows two aspirins with one too hot gulp, almost getting them lodged in his throat, which would just be the fucking capper, wouldn’t it.

“If anyone calls—” Dave says, poking his head out of his office.

“Forward it immediately if it’s from front offices, take a message if it isn’t, politely tell them to fuck off if they’re media,” Andreas says dutifully.

“Good man,” Dave says, and calls Greg, who is, to put it mildly, freaking the fuck out. It isn’t his first rodeo, but it isn’t his dozenth either, and he’s clearly got a problem where he’s gone past the friendly and protective feelings for his client into personally invested in his happiness as well as his success, something Dave’s had some trouble with in his own day. 

From a career standpoint, Boston’s a great place for Matheson to land, whether it’s just a stepping stone or where he ends up for years. It’s a more competitive team than Edmonton — not that it’s hard to find one of those — it’s a passionate market, it’s a defensive minded team that would utilize Matheson’s strengths well. On paper it’s terrific. But of course, there’s the wrinkle of Marcus. Always wrinkling things, Marcus.

“How’s he taking it?” Dave asks.

“Calmer than I am,” Greg says, which isn’t saying all that much, to be honest. “Fuck, I got a call—”

“Call me back if you need to,” Dave says. Even though he honestly doesn’t have the time to be holding the hand of another agent who isn’t even at his agency right now, it’s the right thing to do. He’s half expecting it, half not, but he isn’t expecting Greg to be breathlessly saying, “Vancouver,” when he picks up the phone.

“Pardon me?” Dave asks.

“They’re shipping him to Vancouver,” Greg says.

“Matheson?” Dave asks. “Okay.” 

That’s recalibrating a few things, real quick: closer distance, makes them divisional rivals but it wasn’t like they weren’t already. Marcus is probably over the moon, at least compared to whatever he must have been feeling when it was Boston. He glances at his clock. Two moves aren’t common on deadline day, three moves even less so, but they’re not unheard of. But considering there’s less than fifteen minutes to go, Vancouver’s probably the last landing point. Good for Matheson from a career perspective too, and Dave doesn’t know the kid well, but he’s liked what he’s seen from him, both on and off the ice, so he’s happy for the kid.

Selfishly happy that this is the biggest event of the day too, as he watches the clock tick down to deadline. The rights of one of his young guns have been traded, but that’s not too big a deal since he’s still down in the Q, hasn’t even suited up for them outside of the preseason. He took it like a professional, which had Dave feeling both proud and relieved, glad that it seems he’s got another low-maintenance client, because fuck knows he’s got enough high-maintenance ones. 

There were also few kicking the tire kind of things, a reporter breathlessly announcing a rumour — if you can be breathless on twitter — that gave Andreas some trouble that morning, but a quick call to front office, who apparently literally laughed at the idea of trading their captain brought everyone’s heart rates back in line, though the fans kept speculating well after Dave was informed that was never gonna fucking happen.

And then Matheson’s trade, which was a bit of a tangle, for all that he isn’t even Dave’s client. All in all, when the most stressful part of your day isn’t even technically your job, Dave’s got to say that’s what he considers to be a successful deadline day. Probably the most peaceful one he’s ever had in his career. He might even get home for dinner. He can’t believe he’s going to get home in time for dinner.

“Hey Andreas,” Dave says. “Want to grab a celebratory drink?”

Andreas looks up from his computer. “No incidents drink?” he asks.

“No incidents drink,” Dave says.

“Avoiding dinner at home drink?” Andreas says.

“Look,” Dave says. “It’s not that I’m avoiding dinner—”

Andreas arches an eyebrow.

“It’s just that right now the kids are on a stir-fry kick,” Dave says. “It’s stir-fry seven days a week. And meat’s apparently off the menu.”

“You like stir-fry,” Andreas says.

“I like stir-fry,” Dave says. “I am about to throw the damn wok through the wall if I have stir-fry one more time.”

Andreas snorts. “Drink and a burger?”

“I would fucking kill for a burger,” Dave says. “Fuck yeah we’re getting burgers.”

“I refuse to lie for you if Katrina asks me,” Andreas says, but he’s already getting his coat, and Dave bets his silence costs the exact equivalent of an import beer and a fancy burger. Andreas will probably get one with half an herb garden on it and some brie or some shit. Dave just wants cheese. And bacon. Fuck, Dave misses bacon.

“To a surprisingly un-stressful day,” Dave says when they get their drinks. His headache’s gone: it’s a trade deadline miracle.

“To burgers,” Andreas says.

“To burgers,” Dave says, and clinks his glass.


	29. Scratch(/Money); catching feelings

Nick is out of beer. It’s something he doesn’t realise until he gets back from Joey’s, and thinks, exhausted, ‘I need a fucking beer’, even though that isn’t a good idea, and he goes to his fridge to get one anyway, and there is no beer. Because he drank all the beer in his apartment last night, way more than he should have, because —

This forcefully suppressing his thoughts isn’t working as well when he’s not drunk or in proximity to Joey. Which is weird, you’d think it’d have been harder when he was drinking literal inhibition killing drinks or sitting like three feet away from from the source of confusion, but he guesses the TV was enough of a distraction, that or like — not wanting Joey to think anything was up, because self-care days are important to Joey. He takes them very seriously. Nick didn’t want to mess with Joey’s whole self-care thing.

But now that he isn’t sitting next to a dude who can practically read his mind sometimes or killing brain cells so that they stop brain-celling or whatever, well.

So last night happened. Not Nick’s best night, from both a ‘this is a shitty night’ standpoint and ‘I am being shitty tonight’ standpoint. Turns out that hating someone on sight and then realising why exactly you hate that person on sight does not bring out the best in Nick.

So. No beer. No Money. No real way of pussyfooting around the fact that he was a dick to a total stranger because he was what, jealous? And not in a ‘hey, you’re going to monopolise my best friend’s time and attention and that sucks’ way. That would be stupid but understandable. The flash of very not platonic possessiveness isn’t, because who the hell makes it to twenty-four without figuring out they’re not straight?

Because Nick is. Or at least he was pretty damn sure he was. And he’s not saying that in a freaked out, hysterical, ‘I can’t even tell if a dude is a 1 or a 10, no homo!’ way. Nick knows when someone’s attractive from an aesthetic standpoint, of course he does, but it’s specifically been with women that ‘they are attractive’ could also work out to be ‘I find them attractive’. He’s never wanted to have sex with another guy, not even Henry Cavill, who apparently, at least according to the internet, is every straight dude’s exception. And Nick will admit he is indeed a handsome, handsome man, but still: zero interest in doing the guy.

Joey’s not exactly Henry Cavill. Joey’s — fuck, now Nick’s thinking about what sex with Joey would be like before he can stop himself. He figures it’d be fun? Like, obviously sex is fun, no shit sex is fun, but more — there’d probably a lot of laughing, like some of the best sex is, the kind where nobody’s taking themselves too seriously, just two people enjoying themselves, having fun together. Joey would probably make fun of him for like — everything, but not actually, just chirping, the same way he sometimes pokes at Nick until Nick is obligated to physically take him down, and, well — that just suddenly took a weird spin in his brain.

And —

This is stupid. Just because Joey’s gay doesn’t mean he’d be interested any more than every woman he’s ever met who is interested in men has automatically been interested in Nick. Joey has never shown the slightest indication that he has any interest in Nick whatsoever, which was good — not like a relief or anything, and not something Nick assumed, because that’d be arrogant as fuck and also like, probably homophobic. Usually the dudes assuming every gay guy is automatically interested are the homophobic jackasses. But it was a relief because within weeks of rooming together Joey went from ‘alright dude, quiet, annoyingly judgy about Nick’s food choices’ to the best friend Nick’s ever had, and Nick wouldn’t want anything to jeopardise that.

So it’s pretty fucking stupid that he’s the one catching feelings that could jeopardise that. Also pretty sad that he ends up tooling around google considering how hilarious he found it that Joey was looking up how-tos online that were probably aimed at teenagers with their first real crush, he was so out of his depth when it came to his feelings for Owen.

Not that Nick’s reading how-tos. What kind of how-to would he read? ‘How to forcefully shove something back into the Pandora’s box you just opened’? ‘How to erase your memories of the last twenty-four hours and then hope like hell that it was some weird neuron firing at a weird time and that everything’s going to go back to normal’?

How to get over someone, that one Joey looked up. And Nick knows what he’s supposed to do there, knew it without needing to read a dumb how-to. But you can’t disengage from someone you spend most of your waking life with without them noticing and inevitably feeling very hurt, and honestly, Nick doesn’t _want_ to. Joey’s his best friend, and that hasn’t changed just because a light clicked on in his head that was like ‘I think I want to kiss that toothless dude and also possibly sex shit? It’d be pretty good I think? Am I way less straight than I thought I was or am I having a quarter-life crisis?’

The internet assures him that there’s no age limit on giant epiphanies about your sexuality, which is comforting he guesses. Well. Not really. There isn’t much that’s comforting right now, but strangers on the internet telling him he’s not weird is helpful, he supposes. Doesn’t do much about the actual feelings themselves, and the fact that Joey has heart eyes about someone else entirely.

Owen’s probably going to be around for awhile if he isn’t too stupid to figure out how great Joey is. And Joey’s assured Nick many, many, many times that Owen is a genius, so that’s something Nick’s going to have to resign himself to.

Nick needs a fucking beer. But he’s not going to let himself have one. So. That’s his one win on this stupid fucking day.


	30. Playoff Willy, Trigger (Scratch/Money); rectifying the situation

After Money asks Owen out and Owen gently and very guiltily turns him down, he mentions something to Tate. Something that once Owen’s mentioned, Tate can’t unsee. Like, maybe he’s seeing something that isn’t there? Maybe Owen’s wrong. But the more Tate observes, the more he’s convinced that Owen was right; Scratch is harbouring some non-platonic feelings for Money. And Tate would leave it to the two of them to figure out, except Scratch is playing like a human wrecking ball, reckless and unprincipled, and that cannot stand.

“Wanna talk, bud?” Tate asks.

“I know I played like shit,” Scratch mumbles. “You don’t have to tell me I played like shit.”

“You played like shit,” Tate says, because he did, and just because he knows it doesn’t mean Tate isn’t going to say it. Thankfully pretty much everyone else was lit up, but in a closer game Scratch’s could have cost them. “But I’m not like — you want to talk?”

Scratch gives him a hang dog look.

Tate gives him his best ‘I’m willing to listen’ face.

“About what,” Scratch says. “How shitty I played?”

“No, not about hockey,” Tate says.

“About what then?” Scratch asks, sounding suspicious now.

“Money,” Tate says.

“Nope,” Scratch says, so quickly Tate is pretty damn sure that Owen was right. “No way.”

“Scratch,” Tate says.

“Don’t want to talk about it, Willy,” Scratch says.

“If you’re having feelings—”

“This is not not talking about it, Willy,” Scratch says over him, looking like he’s about a second away from sticking his fingers in his ears like a kid.

“—and those feelings are impacting your play—” Tate says.

“Thought this wasn’t about hockey,” Scratch says.

“I think it might be helpful if you had someone to talk to about your feelings!” Tate says.

“If I had feelings,” Scratch says. “Which I am not saying I am having. You would not be the person I would be discussing those feelings that may or may not exist with.”

“So you’re going to talk to Money about it?” Tate asks hopefully.

“Mind your own business, Willy,” Scratch says, and maybe Tate would, except it’s the playoffs. Everything that affects this team is his business during the playoffs. Everything.

Tate needs reinforcements. He texts Owen, and Owen tells him that if that is indeed the situation, it is not Tate’s job to interfere. Which is likely true. Tate will keep working on him, though. He’ll cave eventually. 

In the meantime he thinks involving Trigger would be helpful, considering how close him and Scratch are, because they have to sort this shit out before it affects their play. Well, it’s already affected Scratch’s, but if it gets to Money? If Money starts playing in his head? It’s unthinkable. Tate will not have his Stanley Cup chances jeopardised by something as silly as human feelings.

*

“Hi Trigger,” Willy says. He sounds very cheerful. It’s making Lee nervous. “Nice day, huh?”

“Hi,” Lee says. “What do you want?”

“Just for you to talk to your best buddy Scratch about his best buddy Money,” Willy says.

“No,” Lee says. And not just because Willy relegated Lee to Scratch’s second best buddy, which is offensive. True, but offensive.

“Please,” Willy says. “You love Scratch and Money. Don’t you want them to be happy? Don’t you think this has gone on too long?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lee says.

“Scratch is head over heels for Money,” Willy says. “And clearly trying to deal with that by avoiding him. Which is upsetting Money. And Scratch. And _the game_.”

Lee squints at him. “No he isn’t. And like. Money’s the gay one, Willy.”

“Watch Scratch,” Willy says. “For one day. Then come back to me.”

“Kay,” Lee says, not really planning on it. It’s best to humour Willy during the playoffs but it’s stupid to actually listen. Unless it’s about hockey. Dude knows his hockey. And Lee’s half convinced they got as far as they did last year because everyone was scared of pissing Willy off.

Scratch keeps staring at the back of Money’s head at lunch, looking sort of pathetic as he does.

“Did you and Money fight?” Lee asks.

“No,” Scratch says. “It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t look fine,” Lee says. “It looks not fine.”

Scratch sighs. “Willy got you on this?” he asks.

“Yup,” Lee says.

“Any chance I can get you to drop it?” Scratch asks.

“Probably,” Lee says.

“Kay, can we drop this?” Scratch asks.

“Sure,” Lee says. “Just — Money? Really? Like of all the dudes —”

“Hey,” Scratch snaps.

“Jeez, sorry,” Lee says. “Money’s suddenly untouchable?”

Scratch rubs his face. “I dunno,” he sighs. “Just. Don’t say shit about him.”

“Oh,” Lee says. “This is bad, huh?”

“It isn’t good,” Scratch mumbles. “Can you drop this now?”

“Yeah,” Lee says. “For sure.”

*

Tate looks up from his lunch to find a looming Trigger.

“I watched,” Trigger tells him.

“And?” Tate asks.

“I don’t like this,” Trigger says.

“The situation or—” Tate says.

“Just tell me whatever your stupid fucking plan is,” Trigger says, and Tate does a little fist pump under the table, because he’s successfully called in the cavalry.


	31. Ty/Johnny, Wilsons; get away

Ty has a dilemma. A quandary, even. A _predicament_.  
  
See, there’s this thing that happens when the hockey season ends — people go home. To their native lands. In Johnny’s case, that’d be some podunk ass town in Ontario that’s pretty much just famous for producing four very large men who are good at hockey and being evil. Except Johnny. Well, no, including Johnny, Ty’s not completely blinded by the fact he’s gone for him. Johnny is great at hockey and also pretty evil, it’s just that Ty is very fond of his pretty evil ass.  
  
And when people go to their native lands during the offseason, they are no longer in Ty’s space all the time, not in his apartment, or his bed, or his arms, and then Ty misses those people. Okay, one people. Ty misses that one people. And texts and face chatting and all that isn’t the same, especially because half the time Ty’s out at a cottage that’s even more remote than his tiny town to train and fuck around on the lake with his brothers, and the reception there? Fucking sucks. Wifi? Pathetic. So Ty frequently doesn’t even get to have that.  
  
And then, driven to distraction by missing his boyfriend, Ty agrees to go to the middle of rural Ontario because that Johnny asked him to come up, and Ty missed him so much that the word ‘sure’ left his mouth before he could say something like ‘oh no, why don’t you come down to me?’ or ‘hey, let’s go on vacation somewhere we can be alone instead’ or ‘your brothers are actively out for my blood so this is probably not the best of ideas, my man’.  
  
And now Ty is at the airport watching the time tick down to his departure and also his doom. Because here’s the thing: Johnny’s brothers fucking hate Ty. It’s not logical, it’s not fair, but it is undoubtedly the truth. And now Ty is going to a remote location with crappy wifi and spotty cell reception to spend time with Johnny’s brothers. Who hate him. And have literally threatened to kill him before. Just because his boyfriend asked him to visit.  
  
Well, Ty can pretty well confirm he’s in love with the dude. This is definitely not something Ty would do for someone he just likes a lot. Walking into your doom is full on dumbass in love level.  
  
 _Pray for me._ , Ty texts his brother — who is not evil and likes Johnny, so Ty can confirm that this is a Wilson brother specific dynamic — and then turns his phone onto airplane mode so he doesn’t get nailed with roaming fees. Though honestly that is the least of his concerns right now.  
  
Ty feels dread through the flight. Feels dread as he disembarks and then has to wait an hour for the flight from Toronto to the closest thing to a city near the Wilsons. He gets a nice distraction from the dread to be absolutely terrified by how small the next plane is — it’s like half the size of the freaking _private jet_ Ty’s used to flying on and does not look airworthy, and then turbulence distracts him the rest of the way, so that’s good. Thanks terrifying turbulence.  
  
Ty is very grateful to get back on solid earth when they land, even if that land is much closer to Johnny’s brothers than he’d like it to be, even more grateful when he gets out of the tiny airport to find Johnny waiting for him.  
  
“Hey,” Johnny says. He looks good. Big. Got that summer tan that’s probably a hilarious farmer’s one if he takes his shirt off. Ty wants to bite him right at the tan line, but biting’s probably not a good idea. Fuck knows what Johnny’s brothers would do if there was physical evidence Ty was having sex with their baby bro.  
  
Fuck, is Ty not going to be able to have sex with him? Are they going to have to sneak around like teenagers? This was so poorly thought out in so many ways.  
  
“What is your face doing?” Johnny asks.  
  
“Nothing,” Ty says. “Hi.”  
  
“You gonna give me a hug, or?”  
  
The hug Ty gives him is probably not very platonic buds who haven’t seen each other in a bit, but whatever.  
  
“Get in the car, loser,” Johnny says when Ty can bring himself to let go.  
  
“Can’t believe I came all this way,” Ty mutters, and Johnny makes a dismissive noise, popping the trunk for Ty’s suitcase and then making Ty put it in himself even though he’s been travelling all day. Jerk.  
  
Ty missed him so much.  
  
“So who all is there right now?” Ty asks when Johnny pulls onto the highway.  
  
“Jack, Jase, Jere,” Johnny says. “The usual.”  
  
“And their girlfriends, or—” Ty says. He feels like they might be more likely to behave in front of girlfriends? You probably don’t want your girlfriend to know you’re an evil person. That’s usually a deal breaker.  
  
“Nah, they’re all single right now,” Johnny says.  
  
Ty bets that’s because them being evil was a deal breaker for whichever poor women dated them.  
  
“Your folks?” Ty asks.  
  
“It’s their anniversary this week so we all sprung for that killer AirBnB for them,” Johnny says. “Remember?”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Ty says. “So it’s just me and you. And your brothers.”  
  
“Yup,” Johnny says.  
  
“Okay,” Ty says faintly. “Okay, that’s good.”  
  
“Yeah, it’ll be chill,” Johnny says.  
  
Ty suspects it will not, in fact, be chill. He suspects it will be the opposite of chill.  
  
“You wanna pick the music?” Johnny asks.  
  
“Sure,” Ty says, and scrolls through his phone to see if he can find something ominous enough to match his mood.


	32. Chaz/Ashley, Raf/Grace (Bryce/Jared, Gabe); live updates

Raf knew that it wasn’t a very good idea the first time he heard about it. He wasn’t alone in that. Grace knew it. Chaz and Ash knew it. They also all know how stubborn both Jared and Bryce are, but Raf’s more aware than anyone that if you tell Jared his idea is bad he’ll nod and agree with you and then do it anyway, if not something worse.

Raf may have intervened anyway, fruitless cause or not — someone has to tell Jared when he’s being ridiculous, and Raf is resigned to it sometimes being him — but an offhand comment from David means that Raf knows that Gabe Markson’s one of Jake’s closest friends. Raf doesn’t really think he’s going to freak out about his linemate being gay if he didn’t freak out about his former roommate not being straight.

He wonders if Markson’s experience is going to be anything like Raf’s was, watching the two of them at camp, desperately pretending they hated each other and flirting at the same time.

Poor Markson.

*

_Legit going to kill him idc if hes our leading scorer_

Ashley cannot say she’s surprised to be receiving this text, or even that the text arrives all of two minutes after Chaz sent her _We’re going in. Fingers crossed._ Honestly, she’d be more surprised not to receive this text, considering the hubris Bryce and Jared had in thinking they’d be able to see each other for the first time in months and not let on that they’re pretty much obsessed with each other. 

Ashley doesn’t mean it in a bad way or an unhealthy way, really, it’s just that those two have basically become her definition of ‘gross lovey-dovey couple’ and she would put money on the fact that Bryce spends more time thinking about Jared than he does anything else, probably including hockey, and that for all Jared would protest, it’s probably mutual. They’re very cute. Sickeningly so sometimes.

Ashley bets they’re doing an absolutely horrendous job of pretending they’re not madly in love right now. She shoots a text to Grace to let her know things are proceeding pretty much as expected. Raf’s on the ice right now, but Ashley imagines he’ll appreciate a play-by-play when he gets off it. The secondhand embarrassment and also amusement is real.

 _Kill Jared instead_ , Ashley sends him. _Not your leading scorer!_

 _point!_ Chaz replies.

*

After talking to the press and getting out of his gear, showering, Raf finally lets himself check his phone to find out whether tonight was as big a disaster as he expected it would be. He’s got over two dozen messages between Chaz and Ashley and Grace, and the group chat’s blown up, he should check Chaz’s first since he’s got the firsthand details, and Grace is probably getting the story from Ashley through Chaz, but he opens Grace’s anyway.

_Two minutes in Chaz has declared this a failure._

_Apparently they’re staring soulfully into one another’s eyes over the table._

_Chaz just accidentally made eye contact with Markson and says he definitely knows something’s up._

_Chaz and B left. B just told Chaz he thought it went well. Ash says Chaz is about to snap._

_There is zero chance that this worked._

_Markson told J to go home to his husband so he went home to his husband and then promptly kicked Chaz out of their apartment. Do we consider this a mission success or complete failure? I’m going with ‘mixed’. because Markson was apparently cool about it._

Raf snorts, and David gives him a politely curious look, a silent ‘tell me what’s funny’.

“My friend’s doing this crash and burn stuff,” Raf says. “Grace sent me updates.”

“The ridiculous friend?” David asks.

Jared would be so mad if he heard David say that. And it’s not something Raf’s ever explicitly called him, but he guesses he gave David that impression. Which is — a fair impression.

“Yeah,” Raf says. “The ridiculous friend.”


	33. Willy, Scratch, Money; The Fountain Incident

Tate doesn’t know how much Scratch and Money have had tonight, but he’s guessing it’s a lot. He came late, so he’s in the moderately tipsy lane where suddenly a piece of pizza sounds good but he isn’t going to do it, but Scratch and Money? These men need pizza, or they’re going to be useless tomorrow, so Tate starts herding their wobbly ass legs to the good place. Not that they’d notice the difference right now, but Tate’s nice like that. Also it’s likely he’ll cave and have a piece himself, so he may as well not cheat on his diet with crappy pizza.

He gets an ominous feeling when Money hops up along the ledge of a fountain they’re passing like a little kid, because Money’s got killer hand-eye but he’s also got vodka running through his veins. If he breaks his ankle they’re going to be so fucked.

“Get down from there,” Tate says, and in the space of one step to another, Money does, but instead of hopping down he’s falling ass first in the fountain.

Well. It’s better than a broken ankle at least.

“You okay?” Tate says.

Money starts splashing around like a fish out of water — or, Tate supposes, a very confused drunk in water — and Tate reaches for his phone, interrupted by Money yelping “I can’t swim!”.

Even if that was true — and it absolutely is not, Money sometimes swims laps with Tate when they end up in a hotel in one of the hotter cities while everyone else just lies in the sun, he’s a strong ass swimmer — he is in maybe two feet of water right now. All he needs to do is stand up and he’ll be fine. 

“Just stand up,” Tate tells him, over Scratch’s “I’ve got you, Money!”

Now there are two men in the fountain.

Tate pulls out his phone and hits record. Never let it be said that he does not take advantage of any opportunity that may arise. And the team deserves to see this.

“Scratch!” Money says.

“I got you!” Scratch says, wrapping his arm around Money, then they just sort of — appear unaware of what to do now. Two plastered dudes sitting in a fountain, soaking wet and very confused.

“Having fun in the fountain, boys?” Tate asks.

“Help us!” Money says. “We’re stuck!”

“Are you really stuck?” Tate asks.

“Yes!” Money says. “Help!”

Tate sees what looks like a security guard approaching, so it’s probably best to get the show on the road before he arrives.

“Why don’t you get on your knees?” Tate suggests, and both do so gingerly.

“Okay,” Tate says. “Now stand! Stand up!”

Both obediently stand up.

“Now get the fuck out of the fountain before you get thrown in the drunk tank,” Tate says.

They are both very wobbly as they get out, Scratch’s arm still wrapped around Money’s shoulders like he needs to continue to protect him from the fountain. Or himself, which is honestly fair. Money does need protecting from himself.

Tate can hear Money’s teeth chattering, and Scratch must too, because he pulls him in tighter. Which probably isn’t helpful considering he’s almost as wet as Joey is.

They’re not going to find a cab that lets them in, are they. Let alone a pizzeria.

Tate sighs and texts Luna to see if she can pick them up. She doesn’t live far from here, and she works evenings, so she’s definitely still up.

 _Sure._ She replies. _Coming over after I drop them off?_

 _For sure. Bring towels for your back seat._ Tate tells her.

 _????_ Luna replies.

 _My teammates are idiots._ Tate says.

Tate nudges the two of them into a side street — easier for Luna to find a spot and also the fewer people who see them the better right now. Both of them are sad shivering and chatter-y teeth by the time Luna pulls up, and Tate feels almost sorry for them. Almost. They did bring it upon themselves.

“Warm,” Money says gratefully once Tate herds them into the towel covered backseat. “Warm, Scratch.”

“Warm,” Scratch agrees.

“Put your seatbelts on,” Tate says, and they both obediently do so. They may be idiots when they get drunk, but they’re very docile idiots.

“Are they — okay?” Luna asks. “Also why are they wet? And please tell me it’s just water.”

“They fell in a fountain,” Tate tells her.

“Both of them?” Luna asks.

“Well, Nick jumped in,” Tate says.

“I had to save Money,” Scratch tells her solemnly.

“That’s nice,” Luna says faintly, and when she gives Tate a side-eye, probably ‘are these dudes for real?’ all Tate can do is shrug.


	34. Scratch&Money pissed, pissed off, and pissed away their chances

Joey had some plans to get drunk as fuck pencilled in, but this is not the way he wanted it to go.

This is the worst getting drunk as fuck ever. No cheering fans, no Willy beside himself with glee, no ignoring basic rules of personal hygiene and shit and all drinking out of the same shining Cup, just him and Scratch sitting on Joey’s couch and drinking in grim silence because what else can they do. Nothing else. If there’s ever a cause for drinking, it’s the Cup, whether it’s winning it or losing it.

Joey doesn’t know what vodka soda he’s on when sad and resigned turns into really fucking mad. A lot, probably. He’s run out of soda at this point, so it’s now vodka and water, which tastes like watery vodka and is not particularly great, but he’s definitely too drunk at this point to go run to the nearest convenience store. Even if he wasn’t, he’s fucking exhausted. He’s battered as shit and his face hurts, and his body hurts, and it’s all going to hurt a hell of a lot more tomorrow when he doesn’t have the booze as an anesthetic and also he’ll be dealing with a hangover.

Fuck the Washington Capitals.

“Fuck the Washington Capitals,” Joey says.

“Fucking right,” Scratch says, saluting him with his can of beer. There are a lot of empty cans on the coffee table between them. Joey could count those for a benchmark on how fucked up they are right now, but he’s too pissed. In more ways than one. “Fucking assholes.”

“Fucking—” Joey says. “I swear to god if I ever run into Matthews in an alley I’ll shank him.”

“I would pay to fight Quincy,” Scratch says. “Like. A lot of money. I would pay a lot of money to fight Quincy.”

“Not nice to fight senior citizens,” Joey says.

Scratch snorts. “Dude was probably in high school when we were born.”

“Dude’s ugly ass beard is probably older than we are,” Joey says.

Scratch snorts. “And fucking Chapman.”

“Fucking Chapman!” Joey says. “How the fuck is it fucking fair that they’ve got Chapman and that fucking whiz kid — how the fuck is it fair that him and Sanchez are on the same fucking line and cost less than like, one Willy? How the fuck does that entire line cost less than just like — Willy and me? Where the fuck are they finding all these dudes for that cheap?”

“Cheating,” Scratch says darkly. “Insider trading or some shit.”

“Yes!” Joey says, pointing at Scratch. “How the fuck that roster is cap compliant I don’t fucking know. Rostering a fucking All-Star team and acting like that’s a fair fucking match-up. Fucking all-star line, fucking all-star goalie.”

“Crane has creepy psychopath eyes,” Scratch says. “That dude’s fucking killed someone at some point.”

He certainly killed their fucking chances. Fucking lights out son of a bitch.

“Fucking lights out son of a bitch,” Joey says aloud, because that needs to be an outside thought, not just an inside one.

“Didn’t fucking help that every fucking time Willy was about to get a shot away Lombardi was throwing himself in front of it like he was his fucking secret service agent and Dineen was sending it to the neutral zone,” Scratch says.

“Fucking right,” Joey says. “Fucking — fuck.”

“Fucking fuck,” Scratch echoes.

“The word fuck’s starting to lose all meaning,” Joey says.

“Yeah,” Scratch sighs. “Fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Joey agrees, and when Scratch wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulls him into a sideways hug, Joey sags into it.

“Can I take the guest room?” Scratch says. “I think I’m too drunk to figure out like. Shoes. And keys.”

He probably isn’t, considering he’s sober enough not to think that he can handle things when he absolutely cannot — a very drunk Scratch believes he is capable of many things that he is not — but it’s a moot point. “Yeah,” Joey says. May as well have some company for the shitshow of tomorrow morning, and Scratch is more capable of doing things when hungover than Joey is.

“This fucking sucks,” Joey says.

“This fucking sucks,” Scratch agrees, and pecks a kiss to the top of Joey’s head before he releases him to crack open another beer.


	35. Morgan/Theo; misunderstanding

Theo doesn’t expect anything to change with Morgan’s return, expects it to go right back to normal, Theo doing his best to ignore him, Morgan ignoring him back now, like that’s going to bug Theo, like that isn’t exactly what Theo wants from him.

It does bug Theo though. He doesn’t know why, but it pisses him the hell off. Maybe because Morgan thinks he has any effect on Theo at all. Maybe because Morgan has such a high opinion of himself that he clearly thinks it’s a punishment, like ‘who wouldn’t be upset to lose my favor?’, was probably the most popular kid in school in his tiny hick town, had guys falling around trying to befriend him, girls falling around trying to get his attention, thinks that’s the way it’s supposed to work in Dallas too. And maybe it will, if he picks the spaces that give a shit who he is, or, even if they don’t care about hockey at all, care that he’s fit, and rich, and don’t give a shit about intelligence or personality or any of the things Morgan lacks.

Theo finds himself bristling when Morgan comes shuffling into the kitchen in a ratty t-shirt and low-slung basketball shorts, looking like the frat boy jock douche he is. Theo focuses very hard on his coffee, suddenly feels the need to add more milk just so he can ignore him better. He’s so sick of dad filling their house with fucking rookies.

That’s not fair. He liked it when Kai lived there, and he’s practically family now. Grigory took longer, but he grew on Theo, enough that Theo was sad when he moved out. Morgan though? Theo can’t wait until Morgan’s gone.

“Morning,” Morgan mumbles.

“Good morning, Frase,” dad says.

“Morning,” Theo says, only because dad’s sitting right beside him, and Theo isn’t interested in tipping him off. Not that it would: dad’s pretty oblivious to that kind of thing. 

Matt and Alexia had a cold war a few months back over something undoubtedly stupid, and it went on for four days before dad picked up on the fact they were even annoyed with one another. Mom would have picked up on it in minutes, but she was back in Drummondville taking care of Aunt Celeste after she had knee surgery, so it was a stupid stalemate for half a week. But there’s no point in risking catching dad’s attention over something that takes as little effort as wishing someone good morning. Not even a good morning. Just noting that it is, in fact, morning. Which is is.

Morgan gives him this stupid, comically surprised look, like he’s oh so shocked that Theo was capable of a ‘morning’.

Theo regrets saying a word.

*

Theo usually goes over to friends’ places, hates the way they do this subtle change when they get to his place, like ‘holy shit he’s loaded’, hates the way he has zero privacy — no one opens his door without knocking or anything, but they’re perfectly happy to interrupt at any point by yelling through the door. It’s crazy to live in a house this size and still never have any space.

But Misty’s an exception. She’s the oldest in her family too, but by a lot, thanks to her mom remarrying, so if they go to hers she inevitably gets guilted into doing babysitting, which means Theo gets guilted into babysitting, and no homework or hanging out or anything gets done except, well, babysitting. And Theo’s not really a kid person, but even if he was he thinks he’d hate Misty’s siblings, who have despite mellow names like Sky and Shore — her mom has a weather theme and a lack of imagination — are shrieky little monsters. So when him and Misty hang out, they do it at his.

It’s been way too long since they have. She often has band practice, her mom ropes her into babysitting way too often, and she eats in the art room more than anywhere else during lunch, so Theo realizes with some surprise that she doesn’t know who Morgan is, her spine straightening when Morgan comes into the kitchen while they’re making pizza bagels, rummaging through the fridge.

Theo doesn’t know why he couldn’t have waited. Like, yes, the kitchen is a communal area, and Morgan lives here too — unfortunately — but he has to know that Theo doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Theo checks on the pizza bagels. Not ready yet.

“Sup,” Morgan says, a bottle of livid yellow sports drink in his hand.

“Hi,” Misty says, voice a little high.

Theo sighs loudly. But internally. He doesn’t want to give Morgan the pleasure of knowing he’s annoyed.

“I’m Morgan,” Morgan says. “And you are—”

“Misty,” Misty says, still too high. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Misty,” Morgan says, giving her a nod and a smile before heading out of the kitchen while Theo seethes at his back.

Misty elbows him sharply. “Who was that?” she asks.

“Morgan?” Theo asks. “The billet?”

“Ohhh,” Misty says, so Theo guesses he told her that much, but it has been awhile. “You didn’t tell me he was like —”

“He’s not,” Theo cuts her off. “At all.”

Misty snorts. “Don’t pretend you don’t have eyes, Theo,” she says. “I know you do.”

“He’s a dick,” Theo says. “Dickishness is unattractive in a person.”

“That is sadly very untrue,” Misty says.

“Speak for yourself,” Theo says.

“Anyway he seemed nice,” Misty says.

“He isn’t,” Theo says. “He keeps like, making fun of me for being gay.”

“Well screw him,” Misty says with an immediate scowl. This is why they’re friends. “Did you tell your folks?”

Theo shrugs. “No point,” he says.

“I’ve never made fun of you for being gay,” Morgan says from the kitchen doorway, and Theo jumps half a foot.

“No one ever told you not to eavesdrop?” Theo snaps.

“I haven’t, not once,” Morgan says. “And I’d really appreciate you not telling people that I have, thanks.”

Theo’s face feels hot, hotter when Morgan turns around and walks away. What the fuck was that?

“Theo?” Misty says after a minute.

“God, he’s such a fucking _dick_ ,” Theo says.

“Was there it misunderstanding, or—” Misty says.

“No,” Theo says. “No misunderstanding.”

“Okay,” Misty says, sounding skeptical, like a single sentence from Morgan can make her doubt Theo’s word, and Theo hates Morgan for that. For a lot of things too, so he guesses it’s just one more thing to add to the list.


	36. Mike/Liam; reunion (pt 1)

It’s been a long road trip. Every road trip feels long lately, but this one was longer than usual. Actually longer — it’s one of the longest they’ve had this season — but like emotionally longer too. Liam doesn’t know how to explain it, how twelve days away from Mike left him feeling desperately homesick in a way he’s never been before, not even when he first moved to Sydney to play in the Q.

He’s practically vibrating with tension when they finally get on the flight back to Minny, knowing he’s bugging the shit out of Roman but completely incapable of not bugging the shit out of Roman.

“You’re like a kid on Christmas,” Roman groans. “How many Red Bulls did you chug after the game?”

Only one. The rest is just Liam.

“I wanna go home,” Liam whines.

“We’re going home, Fitzy, shut the fuck up and let me nap,” Roman says.

Liam tries, but it doesn’t work, his knee bouncing, and then his other knee bouncing, and then Roman puts him in a headlock, and Liam obviously has to bite him, and Cap yells at both of them for disturbing the plane.

“I can’t believe you got me yelled at,” Roman huffs, then relocates to sit in the row behind Connie and Harry and look longingly at the back of Connie’s head — he’d be staring at the back of Harry’s too, except Harry’s too short — like he’s debating whether anyone will care if he tries to make a two-seater a three-seater. Stupid Roman always having his stupid boyfriends even when they’re on the road.

Liam’s the first off the plane — there is some merciless elbowing that makes that happen before the guys get smart and let him take the lead — but he has to wait absolutely forever for his suitcase. He’s half-considering asking Roman to pick it up for him — he’s standing with Connie and Harry, and Connie would agree even if Roman told him to fuck off — when the belt finally starts turning, and Liam’s is one of the first suitcases coming out, so now he’s on the move.

It’s a quick drive home in the middle of the night, and Liam pushes his luck to make it quicker. He’s a little disappointed when he opens the door to find all the lights off, even though it’d be dumb to expect Mike to be waiting up at three in the morning for him, especially since he sent Liam a text at like, seven in the morning grumbling about a breakfast fail. He’s been getting more and more ambitious, and sometimes that means failure. 

Mike does not like failure. Nobody likes failure, but Mike takes it personally, especially in the kitchen. Also the bedroom. He does not fail in either of those rooms frequently at all, but he’s a big sulky baby about it when it happens.

Liam drops off his bag and tiptoes upstairs to see the big sulky baby. He’s asleep, like Liam expected, just enough light filtering through the curtains to catch a sliver of face, the line between his brows that doesn’t disappear even when his face is slack with sleep, one hand over the covers curled in a loose fist like he’s fighting his dreams.

Usually Liam wouldn’t be able to wait to see him until the morning — not that Liam can’t see him right now, obviously, just that he wants to hear him too, even if it’s a grumpy ‘quit making noise’ — get hauled in against his chest at minimum if Mike’s too tired to fuck. 

But he looks so comfortable in his dream fights Liam doesn’t have the heart to, undresses as quietly as possible, doesn’t even turn on the bathroom light when he brushes his teeth, just uses the night light that Mike insists is not a ‘fucking night light, Liam, do you want to trip in the fucking dark when you need to get up to piss in the middle of the night?’ like calling it a night light means it’s only for kids and Mike’s scared of the dark or something. It’s a light for night time, Michael, what the hell else would you call it?

Liam is very careful getting under the covers, but it’s probably overkill, because Mike doesn’t stir at all, not even when Liam tucks himself against Mike’s chest, and then, pushing his luck, pulls Mike’s arm around his waist so he can be properly comfortable, blankets up to his nose and Mike sleep hot against his back.

Liam makes a happy noise Mike would definitely make fun of if he was awake, and falls asleep the easiest he has in weeks.


	37. Mike/Liam; reunion (pt 2)

Mike wakes up with a mouthful of Liam’s hair, which would usually be enough to start his day on a bad note, but honestly, he was so fucking sick of sleeping by himself he summon any real annoyance about it. Liam’s got his fingers wrapped around Mike’s wrist in a loose shackle, but he just mumbles something and rolls over into the warm spot when Mike releases himself so he can get up, check the time. Seven-thirty, so Liam’s got at least a couple more hours of sleep to get in, might not emerge until lunch time. 

Mike makes himself some toast to tide himself over until Liam’s conscious, figures he’d appreciate a proper breakfast — brunch — after almost two weeks of shit hotel food, goes for a walk, even though it’s cold as fuck, picking up a few essentials at the grocery store. He’ll make Liam go with him for a proper grocery run, but he needs chives and creme fraiche for breakfast. 

Liam hasn’t moved a muscle when Mike gets back, sacked out with his mouth hanging open, still hasn’t moved when Mike gets out of the shower. He’s got a sunburn along his nose. Mike packed sunscreen for him, knowing that Liam wouldn’t bother, and it being the middle of winter doesn’t mean shit when you’re talking about the Sun Belt. Mike bets it went unopened.

Mike calls his mom, puts her on speaker as he starts to prep dinner, figure out what it is he wants to make, because Liam’s going to be all over him once he’s awake, and it’s probably the last chance he’s going to get to actually do something without Liam hanging over his shoulder getting handsy and in the way. 

“Liam’s home?” mom asks.

“Liam’s home,” Mike says. 

“Good,” she says.

Mike hums and keeps at the onions, blinking past the sting. Liam is fucking obsessed with them. Mike suspects they’d be eating a lot less shit with onions if Liam was the one who had to chop them. He slides them into the prep bowl, starts on the peppers while mom tells him what completely routine shit Sam is miraculously capable of now. Sam’s a normal kid, but you’d never know it listening to her talk about him. Kid’s the next Einstein and Mozart and Babe Ruth all in one, apparently.

Mike finishes prep before she’s finished telling him about how incredible his nephew is, turns the TV on mute and reads the headlines and grunts affirmatively once in awhile until she wraps up, then checks the time and starts on breakfast. Liam isn’t going to complain about getting up a little early if it’s accompanied by coffee and turkey bacon and scrambled eggs.

He pops some bread in the toaster, puts their plates on the table. It might be over-optimistic, thinking he’ll be able to get Liam downstairs while the toast is still hot, but he really does love Mike’s scrambled eggs. Claims he won’t eat anyone else’s anymore. Mike’s had hotel scrambled eggs, so he can’t blame him.

Mike knows better than to lie down in bed — neither of them will get up until the scrambled eggs are a congealed mess — braces himself on his knees when he pulls the covers down, kisses Liam’s shoulder, the nape of his neck, waiting until Liam starts to stir. “Made you breakfast,” he says when Liam cracks an eye open.

Liam grabs his wrist, starts hauling him in. And this is why Mike braced himself on his knee; to protect himself from this exact fucking situation.

“Nope,” Mike says. “Scrambled eggs, that shit doesn’t sit long.”

Liam mumbles something. Mike doesn’t hear it but he can almost guarantee the words ‘fuck me’ are in there.

“After breakfast,” Mike says. “C’mon.”

Liam rolls over and yawns in Mike’s face.

“After you brush your fucking teeth too,” Mike says, but doesn’t resist when Liam pulls him in for a kiss, though he doesn’t let it linger, Liam complaining but following him downstairs, practically stepping on Mike’s heels. He probably isn’t going to be out of arms length all fucking day.

“You put napkins down,” Liam says, taking the seat with coffee and twice the portion of eggs. Mike gives him any less and he’ll start trying to filch Mike’s. “Real ass napkins. You must have missed me.”

“You’re a messy eater,” Mike says.

“You’re a romantic,” Liam says, and blows Mike a kiss when Mike gives him the finger.


	38. Elaine, Bryce, Marcuses; anticipation (pt 1)

Draft day is a whirlwind and a slog, all at the same time. Elaine wakes up not long after sunrise with long hours stretching ahead of her, tries to sleep until her alarm goes, but can’t manage. Her and Gordie have breakfast around the corner, getting take-out for Bryce, who’s still asleep. He’s all anticipation right now, has been antsy, a mix of excited and irritable since they flew out of Vancouver — well, since the Combine, more accurately — so sleeping in a little will be good for him, means there will be fewer hours for him to wait.

Gordie reads the final draft reports on Elaine’s laptop while Elaine scrolls through her newsfeed, reading to her aloud when he particularly likes a compliment about Bryce’s play. Elaine’s already read them, but she’s certainly not going to complain about hearing ‘superb hockey IQ’ or ‘seamlessly smooth skating’ or ‘elite potential’ when it’s about her son.

Bryce answers the door, groggy, when Elaine decides the line between getting to sleep in and running late is getting thin.

“I was up,” he lies, voice thick with sleep, and then, “Awesome, thanks mom,” when she hands him the take-out box.

“Nothing fancy,” she says. “I couldn’t get you anything that wouldn’t taste good cold.”

“Don’t think I could stomach fancy,” Bryce says. He looks a little wan, washed out pale, and usually Elaine would be checking his temperature, but she knows it’s just the nerves. She has them too, bundled tight, but she can’t let them show, not to Bryce, because he’s so empathetic they’d make him more anxious.

There’s nothing to be anxious about. She knows this. She can’t stop it, but talking to Dave last week helped settle them a little. He ran her through where Bryce was likely to land: certainly in the top thirty, most likely between eighth and fourteenth, with the higher positions more likely than the lower. He tends to fall between tenth and thirteen on draft boards, so probably somewhere in there. 

Looking at the likely destinations, Elaine is selfishly hoping for Calgary, because it’s close enough that she can visit frequently. If not Calgary, then Minnesota, because it’s the only other likely team in the North West division, and that means he’ll have more games in Vancouver.

Bryce desperately wants the Canucks to draft him, she knows. She wants that too, of course she does, not only because Bryce would be living his childhood dream, but also because he’d still be in the same city, but they’re nineteenth on the draft board, and Dave thinks it’s ‘exceedingly unlikely’ that Bryce will fall that far. Not impossible, he admitted, but probably not going to happen. If anything they’d trade up for him, but he’s gotten the impression that they’re looking to draft a defenceman in the first round.

Elaine didn’t tell Bryce about that part of her conversation with Dave. It hasn’t happened yet, nothing’s impossible, and she doesn’t want him to feel disappointed before he’s even drafted. She has a feeling it’s going to be easier to deal with any disappointment he feels when he’s also feeling the rush of being drafted by an NHL team.

Elaine and Gordie get lunch in the hotel restaurant while Bryce eats his breakfast and showers and gets dressed. It’s busy, which isn’t surprising, so many families staying here. Every time Elaine catches someone’s eye she finds herself sharing a small, nervous smile, and they usually give her one right back. 

She sees a lot of plates left half full. The nerves have certainly hit all of them. She focuses on her plate, eats small bites but eats everything, because she doubts, when it comes time for dinner, she’ll be able to stomach anything, focus on anything but getting to the draft, finding their seats in the arena, making sure Bryce is okay, that Gordie’s okay, reassuring them so she can be reassured herself.

Gordie calls Gail while they wait for Bryce to finish getting ready — she’s kicking herself for not being able to travel, but of course Bryce understands she can’t hop on a plane while she’s recovering from gall bladder surgery. 

Her mother had made some noises about coming, but backed out, in the end. It’s fine. Bryce is far closer to Gordie and Gail than he ever was with her parents. Honestly Elaine’s closer to Gordie and Gail than she ever was with her parents. The first time Ben brought her to meet them they opened up their house and their arms and their hearts to her and they’ve been there ever since, for her and Bryce.

Elaine once again reassures Gail that Bryce understands, and that she’ll let him know that she’ll be watching, and that she’ll of course take so many pictures, Gail is in for a whole slideshow, and hands the phone back to Gordie and goes to check on Bryce. She knows he doesn’t need any help, he’s had to wear suits to games for years now, but still.

Bryce looks so handsome when he opens the door that Elaine sort of wants to weep. She won’t, but she wants to.

“I think I’m breaking out,” he says anxiously.

“I don’t see anything,” Elaine says.

Bryce points at his chin.

“Bear, it’s tiny,” Elaine says.

“But they’ll be zoomed in, won’t they?” Bryce asks.

“I have some foundation in my bathroom?” Elaine says.

Bryce looks at her uncertainly.

“Men wear it all the time for TV interviews,” Elaine tells him reassuringly. “It’s just to make skin look even.”

“Okay,” Bryce says. “Can you get it? Don’t tell grandpa.”

“Grandpa won’t care, Bryce,” she says. “But I won’t.”

Elaine gets primer and foundation from her make-up bag, and Bryce sits stock-still on the bed like he’s afraid to move and wreck it. It’s sweet, reminds her of when he really wanted something as a kid — not just begging for whatever he wanted at that moment, but big things, things he wanted badly — that he’d play up being on his very best behaviour and keep shooting her these sly little hopeful looks, like, ‘do you see how good I’m being?’.

She kisses his hair when she’s done. “There you go,” she says. “You’re perfect.”

“Now I have to brush my hair again,” Bryce complains, then, “Mom!” when she ruffles it so he really has to.


	39. Various; spiteful smile

_Well that was uniquely embarrassing, which is impressive considering how embarrassing the Oilers’ season has been in general. No one ever likes losing to a divisional rival, but it’s a particular level of salt in the wound when the difference maker was playing on your second line mere weeks ago. Consensus was generally against the trade at the time, and tonight was a shining example of why._

_Matheson proved the adage of ‘hell hath no fury like a player scorned’, coming out of the gate with an energetic gait (sorry), notching two goals against his former team, including the game winner. While he did appear to visit his former teammates before the puck dropped, we suspect he wasn’t invited to hang out with the team after the game. We also suspect he didn’t mind, after that elite performance in spite driven play. We wished him all the best in Vancouver when he was traded, but we’re going to have to take that back if this is going to happen every time we play the Canucks._

\- postgame write-up (The Copper & Blue)

Comments (38):

> I said at the time I didn’t know what the fuck Deslauriers was thinking, and I’ll say it again louder: I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK DESLAURIERS WAS THINKING

> Re: Amen to that. I miss the hell out of Jacobi but get it’s a business decision and at least he has a chance to get a Cup with Boston. This though? It stunk at the time and now it’s got flies.
> 
> Re: Dude literally seems like he wants to get fired. I know the threshold is high here but man. I miss Donaghue which is not something I ever thought I’d say.
> 
> Re: Re: Reminder that Donahue was the one who drafted Fitzgerald Morris Matheson Halla just to name a few. I know we shit on him a lot and tons of that is fair game but he had an eye for prospects and a great scouting team he took with him to Florida after he got fired. Deslauriers? At this rate we’ll trade Halla for ‘future considerations’.
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Don’t even THINK Halla’s name right now I swear he’ll do it.

> Apparently him and Halla hung out after actually!! OJ had a pic on Instagram.
> 
> Re: How is OJ not even 20 and more mature than I’ll ever be.
> 
> Re: Re: srsly
> 
> Re: Honestly this is the only good news to come out of that shitty game. NO TRADE WILL BREAK UP THE BROMANCE.

*

Chaz is honestly glad it’s not a game night, because there is no more elite entertainment than BJ watching Jared pummel the Oilers with a proud ass smile on his face. After the way things went down, Chaz is getting a hell of a lot of enjoyment out of it as well, doesn’t feel bad for them at all — well, maybe Halla, Halla’s a good guy. No such thing as a good Oiler, but he’s close. The fact Jared just traded the Battle of Alberta for another divisional rival kind of sucks, because it means Chaz is obligated to hate him for brief periods once in awhile, but at least he gets to play for a team that doesn’t suck now.

Ash is half-studying through the game, and Chaz doesn’t know how she does it, because him and Bryce aren’t being particularly quiet between the trash talking from both of them and the little whoop Bryce makes whenever Jared takes the ice. The giant whoop when he scores his first goal — they show Markson fishing the puck out of the net for him afterwards, and Chaz bets that puck’s going to feel really good in J’s hands — and then he full on explodes when Jared notches his second, one that ends up being the game-winner.

He’s a storyline the Canucks’ commentators keep leaning on, sounding delighted for him, and first star of the game, and Bryce is giggling to himself like a really mean little kid when they interview Jared after the game. 

Jared’s interview is objectively pretty boring ‘yeah, feels good’ ‘course it’s nice to beat your old team’ ‘yeah I mean for sure’, breathless and red and with a monotone voice and a monotone face, but Chaz can practically see the smirk he’s trying to keep off his face so he isn’t seen as a sore winner.

“He better not do that against us,” Chaz says. He’s happy for the dude and all, but the Flames need that game a whole lot more.

Bryce makes a noncommittal noise like he wouldn’t even mind it.

*

And that’s how you win the breakup: *gif of Jared Matheson’s goal against the Oilers and Gabe Markson retrieving the puck*

-Canucks official twitter

> **oilkingdom** : @Canucks cries in albertan
> 
> **josh1722** : @oilkingdom @Canucks Matheson’s Albertan
> 
> **oilkingdom** @Josh1722 @Canucks dont think hes crying right now

> **Flamesonmyface01:** @Canucks Name a more iconic duo than the Oilers and fucking themselves over. I’ll wait.
> 
> **010340reality** : @Flamesonmyface01 @Canucks Bryce Marcus and handcuffs?
> 
> **Flamesonmyface:** @010340reality @Canucks Dude fuck off he hasn’t done anything since he was a kid. Like you’ve never made mistakes.
> 
> **010340reality:** @Flamesonmyface @Canucks You asked the question! Sorry your team has no integrity sucks to be a Flames fan

> **GarrettyGee:** @Canucks That was a killer goal. Hyped to see what else Matheson can do. Can’t say I expected a bunch of Battle of Alberta infighting in the Canucks replies but can’t say I mind it either!

*

Julius eyes Jared.

Jared gives him a smile. It’s not a nice smile. It looks like a nice smile, but it isn’t one. “Am I uninvited?” Jared asks him, all fake sweet.

“No,” Julius mutters, and turns on his heel, Jared following him to the garage like he never left Edmonton at all, like he isn’t the exact reason the Oilers lost tonight.

“One rule,” Julius says.

“Hmm?” Jared asks.

“Do not gloat,” Julius says.

“I would never,” Jared says in a fake injured voice.

Liar.

*

_…it’s far too soon to tell, both from a prospective career standpoint — Matheson’s only in the second year of his ELC — and from a trade standpoint, but he’s looked confident on a line with Markson and Kurmazov, a line oft referred to ‘the cursed line’ after a rash of injuries, his youth and energy complementing Markson and Kuramazov’s veteran experience._

_What’s most impressive about this combination is that not only has there been an uptick of offence, which is to be expected of a player who could keep up with the likes of Julius Halla, but there’s a maturity to his play that makes this a dangerous shutdown line as we move toward the playoffs. We really like what we’re seeing from Matheson so far._

_And whatever comes in Matheson’s career, the fact he had a two-goal night after a widely derided trade? That’s got to be salt in the wound for Oilers fans._

_And the tears are delicious._

-How Much of a Steal WAS Jared Matheson? (Nucks Misconduct)


	40. Elaine, Bryce, Marcuses; anticipation (pt 2)

Gordie comes by Bryce’s room as Bryce sulkily re-does his hair in the bathroom now that Elaine’s messed it up— Elaine has no regrets — and mutely hands the phone over to Bryce, who stops messing with his hair to talk to Gail. Well, it’s mostly Gail talking at him for the conversation, Bryce mostly ‘I know, grandma’ and ‘I love you too, grandma’, while Gordie gets visibly impatient, which is odd, because he generally has the most tolerance when Gail’s chattering.

“You’re not wearing a tie, Bryce?” Gordie asks after Bryce hangs up and hands him the phone, sounding completely aghast. Elaine guesses that was what he was impatiently waiting to say.

“I am, I just haven’t decided which one yet,” Bryce says. “Do you think blue’s jinxing it?”

“I like that tie,” Elaine says. “It makes your eyes stand out.”

“Gotta look good for the cameras,” Gordie tells him, and Bryce goes to his suit bag, pulls out the blue tie.

Gordie ties Bryce’s tie for him, and Bryce allows him to do it, even though he’s been tying his own tie since he was fifteen, waiting when Gordie has to start over twice before he manages it, gives Elaine this little conspiratorial smile over Gordie’s tucked head, ‘yeah, I’m humouring grandpa’.

Elaine adores him. Every day, but right now especially, patiently waiting for Gordie to tie his tie because it’s important to him.

*

As Elaine expected, dinner is not a reality today. She tries to convince Bryce to eat, considering he hadn’t eaten since a fairly small breakfast, and when Bryce grudgingly agrees to eat a protein bar and drink some water she considers it a win.

It takes a long time to get inside, so many draft picks and so many family members, ushers directing people around, splitting up larger groups, with the immediate family staying with the player, everyone else sent to the upper bowl with the fans, some of the later draft picks who came either out of interest, or some sharp hope. 

They end up fairly close to the stage. Considering Bryce’s draft position that makes sense, cutting down on the walk to the stage, but she still gets excited to see it, how close they are, how close he is. Bryce looks like he’s going to be sick when they settle in their designated seats, Gordie on his other side, and Elaine wouldn’t blame him if he was.

Elaine shares an anxious smile with Gordie, and Gordie smiles back, gives Bryce a shoulder shake, laughs when Bryce mumbles, “Grandpa, stop,” and leans away from him. She catches Bryce’s hand, and he squeezes tight for a second then pulls his hand away. She knows he’s just worried about giving off an impression of being a momma’s boy, but it still stings a little.

Gordie murmurs something to Bryce, and Bryce nods, head down, eyes in his lap. She can’t hear him, but she thinks she knows what he’s saying: that Ben would be so proud right now, seeing him here. He would be. He would go around bragging about all of Bryce’s milestones to everyone that would listen, absolutely in love with him, would get this look on his face when Bryce would run to meet him at the door as a toddler, like he didn’t know how he could have gotten so lucky.

He was the one who took Bryce skating the first time, the one who watched Canucks games with Bryce dozing on his chest when he was a baby while Elaine took the chance to nap. 

He used to yell at the TV whenever there was a play he was particularly passionate about, but once Bryce was born that was it: he wouldn’t raise his voice at all, maybe just murmur to Bryce that was ‘a boneheaded play’ or ‘refs are extra blind tonight, buddy’. If he’d been alive when Bryce was playing he would have been at every single game, every single practice. He’d be so proud right now.

“Mom,” Bryce says. “Stop. It hasn’t even started.”

“I know,” Elaine says, wiping her eyes. “I’m just really proud of you, Pooh Bear.”

“Mom,” Bryce whines.

Elaine laughs, grabs a tissue from her purse. She’s sure she’ll go through the whole pack of it, and Bryce will be embarrassed, but it isn’t like the other parents won’t be doing the same.

Bryce white knuckles the armrests when the Commissioner takes the stage, grows tenser and tighter each time they call a name that isn’t his. He knew he wasn’t going first, or second, or third, and Elaine did too, but she still feels disappointed, wants to take his hand as they go further down the list, but knows he won’t let her, nervous that will be the moment they show him on the big screen.

The moment the word Spokane leaves the mouth of the Flames GM Gordie’s jumping up, and she can feel Bryce relaxing all at once beside her before he’s standing too, pulling Gordie into a big, back slapping hug, then hugging Elaine so tight it hurts a little, not that she minds at all. She holds him just as tight, and lets him go reluctantly, so he can go down the stairs, accept his hat, his jersey.

“Close to home,” Gordie says, taking her hand as they watch Bryce take the stairs two at a time, too excited to be self-conscious for once. And it isn’t close, it’s a thousand kilometres away, but it’s as close as he could get, other than Vancouver, and he gets to live his dream, and she is so blindingly happy for him right now, for him and herself.

“Close to home,” Elaine says, and squeezes Gordie’s hand tight.


	41. Bryce/Jared, Elaine; celebratory mood

Jared wakes up at ten-forty five — the latest he’s gotten up since the postseason started — to a kiss to the forehead, a cup of coffee handed to him, the immediate awareness that the Nucks did it, they’ve got at least another round to battle through. As ways to wake up go, it’s pretty fucking great.

“Didn’t want you to mess up your schedule,” Bryce says. “But if you want to go back to sleep—”

“Nah,” Jared yawns. “Thanks.”

Jared takes quick shower, goes to get more coffee, and finds Bryce and Elaine in a very messy, disorganized kitchen. It did not look like that when Jared got back from Oakland last night.

“We’re making you a celebration brunch!” Elaine says.

That is very sweet, but the problem with that is that neither Elaine nor Bryce is a very good cook; Bryce just doesn’t bother, so Jared’s the cook when they’re together, and when Jared’s gone Bryce does a mix of delivery and a meal service that follows his nutrition plan. In Vancouver it’s also been a mix of delivery and a meal service that follows Jared’s, when Jared isn’t cooking for him and Elaine.

Jared tries to think of a nice way to salvage breakfast without offending either of them. “Can I help?” he lands on.

“Oh but it’s for you,” Elaine protests, but Bryce just says, “Sure,” and Jared takes over egg and turkey bacon duty and sets them on toasting and buttering and cutting up fruit, Elaine deciding to give herself an extra duty, pouring them sparkling wine and orange juice.

“It’s not even noon,” Jared protests.

“You have the day off,” Elaine says. “Celebrate!”

There’s something about alcohol with breakfast that hits Jared very differently than alcohol with dinner. And even then he knows he’s a lightweight, but it’s very much magnified after two mimosas that went straight to his head. He feels very — tingly, and also Bryce, on his laptop at the end of the bed, is too far from him. Jared would preferably like Bryce on top of him. Or under him. Or beside him. Just closer.

Some of that leaves his mouth.

“You’re drunk,” Bryce says, sounding delighted about it.

“I’m tipsy,” Jared says. “C’mere.”

Bryce, obedient as always, lets Jared drag him on top of him.

There is maybe some slightly drunk — okay yes, Jared is drunk, whatever — and possibly a little giggly making out, which turns into slightly drunk and still giggly handsiness, and Jared hopes Elaine didn’t come upstairs at any point because the handsiness ends exactly where you’d expect, with some very pleasant sex and an equally pleasant nap.

Jared wakes up a little dry-mouthed, headache-y, a bottle of Gatorade already on his bedside table, like Bryce maybe did as well, or at least has more experience in this department. He chugs it, goes to find his husband, who’s sitting at the kitchen table with Elaine, scrolling through Skip the Dishes trying to figure out what to order for dinner, the Marcuses all done with that cooking business now.

Jared hooks his chin over Bryce’s shoulder, adds his two cents — he wants something substantial, he feels like skin and bones right now, the grind of the season working him down to his rookie weight. They get complete junk food and eat it in front of a movie Jared half watches — it’s one of Elaine’s favourites, and Jared and Elaine do not have the same taste in movies — and Jared would feel a little guilty about it if it didn’t taste so damn good. Whatever. He needs the calories.

“Hey,” Bryce says when Jared steals a few fries — he didn’t order any, and Bryce, who’s taking a few weeks off before he even considers summer training, gets to ignore his diet a bit — and then, completely undermining himself, tips the fries closer so they’re easier to steal. 

Jared does not deserve this man. 

He glances over at Elaine, wrapped up in her movie, tucks his cheek against Bryce’s shoulder, stealing a couple more fries before he settles in, comfortable, dozes through the rest of the movie — playoffs are exhausting — waking up, again, to a kiss on the forehead before Bryce nudges him up to bed.


	42. Harry/Evan/Roman; Hallmark Holiday AU

“Why does it have to be me?” Harry complains.

Annie sighs dramatically. It is maybe not the first time Harry has asked this question.

“One,” she says. “It’s the middle of Erin’s season, so obviously I can’t go.”

Harry’s fine with that. “Sam,” he says.

“Has a new girlfriend!” Annie says. “He can’t just abandon her to go to BC for months and still have a girlfriend.”

That’s a Sam problem, not a Harry problem.

“And Deb’s in the middle of mid-terms,” Annie says, like Harry was about to suggest a twenty year old with zero experience in the family business go alone to the middle of nowhere BC. It was supposed to be dad, but he had a new acquisition and he has to stay in New York until the merger into Chalmers Co. is settled, and that could be months. And since Erin’s in the middle of the hockey season, and Sam’s got a stupid girlfriend, it’s apparently Harry that is going to be going into interior British Columbia right in time for winter.

Harry packs like he’s going to the Arctic, reads up on Prince George on the flight from New York to Vancouver. It’s a small town in his view, not even 100,000 people, but at least they have a WHL team so he’ll have something to do while he’s wasting his time up there. He spends a night in Vancouver, flies out first thing in the morning in a tiny plane. The turbulence is brutal, so he’s glad to get there just to get his feet back on solid ground.

Harry waits forever for his bags — how many other bags could that small plane have — answers a few emails that can’t wait until he reaches the hotel he’ll be living in for the foreseeable future. This place doesn’t exactly have a wealth of short-term housing, which is exactly the reason Harry’s here.

He finally manages to get his bags, and then as soon as he’s moving he’s knocking into what feels like a brick wall and falling on his ass.

“Watch it,” Harry snaps.

The brick wall blinks at him, then offers a hand. “You okay?” he asks.

Harry ignores it, scrambling up. “Watch where you’re going, christ.”

“You literally ran into me,” the brick wall says.

“Whatever,” Harry mutters, and retrieves his bags. Thankfully there’s a cab outside. Waiting in the cold would have been a last straw. His room’s ready too, so he has time for a quick shower before he heads into his temporary office to survey the landscape and meet his new assistant.

Harry’s not exactly in a good mood when he gets into what is supposed to be his office — it’s tiny, and ugly, and apparently they fucked up the assistant too, because there’s no one there and —

“I’m Evan,” someone says from the doorway, and Harry looks up. And up. And up.

Harry has no idea how someone can simultaneously be a giant — he’s probably got half a foot on Harry, and Harry’s above average in height — and also like — pretty. Because Evan is very, very pretty. This is not a good thought to have about your assistant but like — temporary assistant. And suddenly Prince George is looking up as much as Harry is.

Evan is not only extremely attractive, he is also meticulous — he goes over his organizational plan with Harry, who can find no faults in it whatsoever, and Harry is very good at finding faults in everything — and quite bright, seems to pick up on everything Harry’s saying even though he’s more of a generalist in his admin experience, not used to working with developers, and honestly Harry’s a little infatuated. Okay a lot infatuated, to the point he’s a little disappointed when the end of the day arrives.

He eats in the hotel restaurant — he’ll have to ask Evan for restaurant recommendations, because the food is mediocre at best — and debates going up and getting some work done, but apparently there’s an WHL game tonight, and Harry has the weekend to catch up on what he missed, so he may as well take in a game while there’s a game to watch.

That was absolutely the right decision, because in the very back row of general admission, there is a very giant man. A very giant, familiar man.

“Harry!” Evan says, waving him over. “Sit with me!”

“You pick the back?” Harry asks, sliding in beside him. There’s no one else in the row, the scattered crowd closer to the action.

“I don’t want to block anyone’s view,” Evan says.

He’s also thoughtful. Thoughtful and a hockey fan. He is possibly too good to be true.

“You a big hockey fan?” Harry says.

“I used to play,” Evan says. “Not this level, just BCHL. I try to catch as many Cougars games as I can.”

“Played hockey through college,” Harry says, and when Evan offers him a fist, Harry bumps it. “My older brother and little sister too. And my older sister’s fiancee’s in the NWHL. We’re a big hockey family.”

“Guess I don’t have to ask why you’re at a WHL game then,” Evan says.

“Best entertainment in town,” Harry says, not quite talking about the hockey.

Evan smiles at him, and Harry smiles back. That smile of his is contagious.

They talk throughout the first few minutes, which are a slow start, and then Evan dials in a bit, in a way that Harry can tell that he’s not just a hockey fan, but a fan of the Cougars specifically. There’s a different body language when you’re invested in the outcome of a game rather than just there to watch the game itself.

Evan huffs out a frustrated breath when the Cougars are called for too many men, and the coach isn’t happy either, furiously gesticulating at the refs. It takes a moment to realize the pissed off guy in a suit and a tie with the lumberjack looking brick wall who bowled Harry over this morning, but once he does, it sort of makes sense. A guy built like that, Harry’s willing to bet he’s one of those coaches that played hockey first.

“Who’s the coach?” Harry asks.

“Roman,” Evan says. “My boyfriend.”

And of course. Of course the one tiny bright spot Harry’s encountered in this stupid town is taken. And by a rude brick shithouse who could snap Harry’s spine with one gigantic hand.

“He looks like a goon,” Harry mutters, then blanches, because you probably shouldn’t insult the boyfriend of the one person you like in this stupid town.

Evan laughs. “He was,” he says. “Sort of. He played for the North Stars before he got a knee injury, definitely got into a lot of fights while he was there.”

Oh good, Harry can now revise that to definitely capable of snapping Harry’s spine in half. That’s good to know. Absolutely terrific.

“How’s it going?” Annie asks when Harry calls her the next day.

“Bah fucking humbug,” Harry says.


	43. Willy/Owen; best intentions (pt 1)

Tate tends to be aware when someone’s interested in him, and, not to sound cocky: it happens a lot. He knows some of that is the money in his bank account, the way he plays on the ice, and he’s not ashamed of that. He worked hard to make it as far as he has. You don’t stumble into being a league leader, you work harder and smarter and more skilled than everyone else. You devote your life to it.

But there are people who know absolutely nothing about hockey, have no clue about who Tate is, or how much he makes, or the trophies he’s won, the sponsorships he has, who are interested anyway, and Tate tends to prefer those people. It feels more — he doesn’t know, authentic. 

It’s also more likely not to end up online for clout, ‘I banged Tate Williams, here are the deets’. Not that Tate thinks it’d be unflattering — Tate doesn’t slack off in any facet of his life, and that includes sex — more that he knows he has multiple family members keep up with the news about him, and he’d really prefer they don’t accidentally stumble on something about how enthusiastically he gives head.

It’s particularly important with men. Poor Money provided a concrete example of just how important last season, and Tate had ached for him, ached for himself too, because if it was news with Money — Money’s a crowd favorite, a coach’s dream, one of the most talented all-around players Tate has ever played with, for all he flies under the radar.

Money’s not the face of the franchise.

Which is all to say that it is extremely obvious that Owen’s attracted to Tate. As obvious as it is that Money’s interested in Owen, which is to say: blindingly. Money’s practically got his chin in his hands and his legs kicking, and Tate’s never seen him looking anything close to that smitten before, so he does his best to help him out, even though Money’s shooting daggers at him for it. 

Tate offers Owen tickets for him and his grandma, invites him out with the Scouts after a game, getting Mad Money the whole time, but Tate thinks he knows Money pretty well by now: he’s not going to do it himself. And Money’s charm isn’t obvious the second you get to know him, he’s either quiet or babble-y, depending on his mood and how comfortable with you he is, but Money’s a great guy, and the more time Owen spends with him, the more likely he is to see that. 

And Money deserves a win. Just in general, because he’s great, but especially after the year he’s had. If Tate can facilitate that for him, he is absolutely going to. He might need the team’s help, though, because Joey might not help himself.

“What up, bitches,” Tate says to the room at large as he walks into practice the next morning, gets a bunch of grunts back. Tate doesn’t think there’s a single morning person on the roster.

“Met Joey’s boy yesterday,” Tate says, and they suddenly look a lot more interested now that they’ve sensed a chirping opportunity. “Says he’s going to come out next game.”

Money buries his face in his hands, because he’s caught on to exactly what Tate just did: either Owen joins the team after their next win, or he gets hounded until he gives in and invites him.

Shithead throws a ball of tape at Joey with a “Get it, Money!”

Brandon can be a bit of a dick sometimes — most of the time, honestly — but not about that, thankfully.

“Money says he hates you,” Scratch pipes up. Money’s face is still in his hands, so either he muttered it so only Scratch could hear, or they’ve finally gotten so co-dependent they’ve learned telepathy.

“Fair,” Tate says. “He’s still coming.”

Money will thank him for it later.


	44. Gabe/Stephen, Bryce/Jared; concerned parent

“I worry about the children,” Stephen says.  
  
Gabe’s coming off an endorphin high and a very long day so it takes a second to parse that. “Jared and Bryce?” he asks finally, since it’s not how he refers to his sisters, and unless Stephen adopted without Gabe’s knowledge, they do not have actual children.  
  
“No, the literal children I adopted without your knowledge,” Stephen says. Gabe kisses his shoulder.  
  
“They don’t know how obvious they are, do they,” Stephen says.  
  
“Nope,” Gabe yawns. “Completely clueless.”  
  
“It’s going to blow up in their faces, Gabe,” Stephen says.  
  
“It might not,” Gabe says. “Look at Jake and David.”  
  
“Jake Lourdes has more subtlety about his relationship in his pinkie than they do combined,” Stephen says. And since one of Stephen’s favourite hobbies is dunking on Jake, even now that he knows him and Gabe weren’t like, secretly dating half of Juniors, just hooking up when they were both single, that is not meant as a compliment. “And David’s discreet. Those two don’t know the word.”  
  
“I think it’s probably in Jared’s vocabulary,” Gabe says. “If not his repertoire.”  
  
“It’s going to blow up in their faces, Gabe,” Stephen says again.  
  
“It might,” Gabe says. “I hope it doesn’t. I don’t know if they can really like — I don’t think they know how to hide it. And I don’t think they should have to. We don’t.”  
  
“They shouldn’t,” Stephen says. “But no offence, a second-liner on the Canucks having a boyfriend tangentially in the industry is significantly less news-worthy than the Flames’ star scorer legally wed to a divisional opponent.”  
  
“I know,” Gabe says.  
  
“And Jared’s got significant upside as a two-way forward,” Stephen says. “And he’s a great playmaker. I don’t know how long he’ll stay under the radar either.”  
  
“I know,” Gabe repeats.  
  
He does. He just doesn’t have a solution, which he knows is what Stephen wants. 

Everything Stephen said was correct: Bryce is a star player in a big Canadian market who doesn’t even bother to hide the fact he’s wearing a wedding ring, and when him and Jared are in the same place it’s painfully obvious they’re head over heels for one another, no matter how hard they try to hide it. Jared does okay when Bryce isn’t in town, but he’s visibly beaming walking into the room right now, and people probably assume it’s from the playoff run, but they’re not going to if he does it every time they play the Flames.  
  
And Gabe thinks, with despair, that the first time he met Bryce they earnestly believed they were fooling him. Their confidence in the midst of the utter lack of success was the most concerning part. They’re going to trip up sooner rather than later. Frankly Gabe’s amazed it hasn’t leaked yet, and he thinks it’s known in a lot more of the hockey circle than Bryce and Jared think, it’s just ‘this stays in the league’ business.  
  
“I can’t think of a solution,” Gabe says apologetically.  
  
Stephen sighs and rolls onto Gabe, and Gabe lets Stephen gently squash him — he’s not at his hockey weight, but he keeps in shape, and he’s not light — until it makes him feel better, twisting his fingers through the pale strands of Stephen’s hair. Getting his hair played with and flattening Gabe’s lungs seems to help, and Stephen drifts enough to allow Gabe to nudge him off, rearrange them into something less likely to have him suffocate in his sleep, and he falls asleep pretty soon after that, too soon to see if Stephen has any epiphanies.  
  
*  
  
“Uh,” Jared says the next morning before practice. “Is there a reason why Stephen sent me a message demanding I give him the phone numbers of my agent and Bryce’s agent?”  
  
“Yes,” Gabe says. He guesses Stephen did in fact have an epiphany. Not a solution, but it’s a smart avenue to take.  
  
“Is he going to do like, nefarious things with them?” Jared says.  
  
“No,” Gabe says. He’ll probably go over what contingency plans are currently in place and make sure that they’re aware their clients are not as discreet as they may be claiming they are.  
  
“Should I give him the numbers?” Jared says.  
  
“Yes,” Gabe says. Forewarned is forearmed, and it’s information their agents should definitely have, if they haven’t already gathered it themselves.  
  
“Stop being cryptic,” Jared mutters, but after practice he shoots Gabe their contact info. Gabe suspects they are both due for conversations about their clients shortly. He hopes Stephen’s feeling nice today, but he doubts it.  
  
“Oh thank fuck,” Stephen says when Gabe delivers the names and phone numbers and lunch because Stephen’s working from home today.  
  
“Thank fuck?” Gabe asks.  
  
“Dave Summers is one of the best in the business,” Stephen says, already picking up his phone. “And it’s honestly criminal his assistant isn’t an accredited agent himself. I suspect Dave’s practically paying him an NHL salary to keep him at this point.”  
  
“Eat first,” Gabe says.  
  
Stephen sighs but dutifully eats with Gabe before he goes off to call Summers. Gabe doesn’t hear any shouting coming from the office, so that’s probably a good sign.


End file.
